Once on a time, long, long ago, there was a widow woman who had three
daughters. When their father died, their mother thought they never would
want, for he had left her a long leather bag filled with gold and silver.
But he was not long dead, when an old hag came begging to the house one day
and stole the long leather bag filled with gold and silver, and went away
out of the country with it, no one knew where.
So from that day, the widow woman and her three daughters were poor, and
she had a hard struggle to live and to bring up her three daughters.
But when they were grown up, the eldest said one day: "Mother, I'm a young
woman now, and it's a shame for me to be here doing nothing to help you or
myself. Bake me a bannock and cut me a callop, till I go away to push my
fortune."
The mother baked her a whole bannock, and asked her if she would have half
of it with her blessing or the whole of it without. She said to give her
the whole bannock without.
So she took it and went away. She told them if she was not back in a year
and a day from that, then they would know she was doing well, and making
her fortune.
She traveled away and away before her, far further than I could tell you,
and twice as far as you could tell me, until she came into a strange
country, and going up to a little house, she found an old hag living in it.
The hag asked her where she was going. She said she was going to push her
fortune.