[Skim milk; and sometimes labour in the quern,
And bootless make the breathless huswife churn]
The sense of these lines is confused. _Are not you he_, says the
fairy, _that fright the country girls_. _that skim milk_, _work in
the hand-mill_, _and make the tired dairy-woman churn without
effect_? The mention of the mill seem out of place, for she is
not now telling the good but the evil that he does. I would
regulate the lines thus:
_And sometimes make the breathless housewife churn
Skim milk, and bootless labour in the quern._
Or by a simple transposition of the lines;
_And bootless, make the breathless housewife churn
Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern._