“Good-day, Auntie.”
“_That_ Auntie to my bride,” said the Prince.
“Yes, she was!”
“Well, then, she’d better sit down with us to the feast,” said the
Prince; but, to tell you the truth, both he and the rest thought she was
a loathsome woman to have next you.
But just then in came another ugly old hag. She had a back so humped and
broad, she had hard work to get through the door. Up jumped the bride in
a trice, and greeted her with “Good-day, Auntie!”
And the Prince asked again if that were his bride’s aunt. They both said
Yes; so the Prince said, if that were so, she too had better sit down
with them to the feast.
But they had scarce taken their seats before another ugly old hag came
in, with eyes as large as saucers, and so red and bleared, ’twas
gruesome to look at her. But up jumped the bride again, with her
“Good-day, Auntie,” and her, too, the Prince asked to sit down; but I
can’t say he was very glad, for he thought to himself,—
“Heaven shield me from such Aunties as my bride has!” So when he had sat
a while, he could not keep his thoughts to himself any longer, but
asked,—
“But how, in all the world, can my bride, who is such a lovely lassie,
have such loathsome, misshapen Aunts?”
“I’ll soon tell you how it is,” said the first. “I was just as
good-looking when I was her age; but the reason why I’ve got this long
nose is, because I was always kept sitting, and poking, and nodding over
my spinning, and so my nose got stretched and stretched, until it got as
long as you now see it.”
“And I,” said the second, “ever since I was young, I have sat and
scuttled backwards and forwards over my loom, and that’s how my back has
got so broad and humped, as you now see it.”
“And I,” said the third, “ever since I was little, I have sat, and
stared, and sewn, and sewn and stared, night and day; and that’s why my
eyes have got so ugly and red, and now there’s no help for them.”
“So! so!” said the Prince, “’twas lucky I came to know this; for if folk
can get so ugly and loathsome by all this, then my bride shall neither
spin, nor weave, nor sew, all her life long.”
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