This young gentleman is much smitten with her. He goes home, and
brings a piece of linen, and says to her:
"Here are seven shirts, and if you finish them by such a time we will
marry together."
She sat thinking without doing anything, and with tears in her
eyes. Then comes to her an old woman, who was a witch, and says to her:
"What is it makes you so sad?"
She answers, "Such a gentleman has brought me seven shirts to sew,
but I cannot do them. I am sitting here thinking."
This old woman says to her:
"You know how to sew?"
"I know how to thread the needle; (that is all)."
This woman says to her:
"I will make your shirts for you when you want them, if you remember
my name in a year and a day." And she adds, "If you do not remember
I shall do with you whatever I like. Marie Kirikitoun--nobody can
remember my name."
And she agreed. She makes her the seven shirts for the appointed
time. When the young man came the shirts were made, and he takes the
young girl with joy and they are both married.
But this young girl grew continually sadder and sadder; though her
husband made great feasts for her she never laughed. One day they had
a frightfully grand festival. There came to the door an old woman,
and she asks the servant:
"What is the reason that you have such grand feastings?"
She answers, "Our lady never laughs at all, and her husband has these
grand feasts to make her gay."
The old woman replied:
"If she saw what I have heard this day she would laugh most certainly."