` What smells of singeing here ? ' asked the young woman , and looking round she saw her own husband . ` Woe is me ! you have burnt my skin . Why did you do that ? ' ` To give you back your human form again . ' ` Alack-a-day ! I have nothing to cover me now , poor creature that I am ! ' cried the young woman , and transformed herself first into a distaff , then into a wooden beetle , then into a spindle , and into all imaginable shapes . But all these shapes the King 's son went on destroying till she stood before him in human form again . Alas ! wherefore take me home with you again , ' cried the young woman , ` since the witch is sure to eat me up ? ' ` She will not eat you up , ' answered her husband ; and they started for home with the child . But when the witch wife saw them she ran away with her daughter , and if she has not stopped she is running still , though at a great age . And the Prince , and his wife , and the baby lived happy ever afterwards . -LRB- 9 -RRB- -LRB- 9 -RRB- From the Russo-Karelian . JACK AND THE BEANSTALK JACK SELLS THE COW ONCE upon a time there was a poor widow who lived in a little cottage with her only son Jack . Jack was a giddy , thoughtless boy , but very kind-hearted and affectionate . There had been a hard winter , and after it the poor woman had suffered from fever and ague . Jack did no work as yet , and by degrees they grew dreadfully poor .
The widow saw that there was no means of keeping Jack and herself XXXXX starvation but by selling her cow ; so one morning she said to her son , ' I am too weak to go myself , Jack , so you must take the cow to market for me , and sell her . '
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