Chapter 79: The Water-Nix

The Water-Nix A little brother and sister were once playing by a well, and while they were thus playing, they both fell in. A water-nix lived down below, who said, “Now I have got you, now you shall work hard for me!” and carried them off with her. She gave the girl dirty tangled flax to spin, and she had to fetch water in a bucket with a hole in it, and the boy had to hew down a tree with a blunt axe, and they got nothing to eat but dumplings as hard as stones. Then at last the children beca…