The woman thought, ‘if only this fine yam were a daughter, how happy I should be.’ To her astonishment the yam answered, ‘If I were to become your daughter, would you promise never to reproach me with having been a yam?’
The King took another wife, a beautiful woman, but proud and overbearing, and she could not bear to be surpassed in beauty by any one.
The bear came every evening at the same time, laid himself down by the hearth, and let the children amuse themselves with him as much as they liked.
‘Child,’ says the mother, ‘do you know you are as pretty as a princess?’ ‘Am I that?’ says the maid, and goes on with her crying.
A little bird that's in the air, the hidden trespass shall declare, and openly reveal it.
The star children all began to cry again. Just then the fairy mother of the sky came with a torch to light the star lamps. ‘Crying again?’ she said. ‘What’s the matter now?’
The woman felt great terror, and wondered how she could escape the blame. So that nothing should be seen, she set the boy on a chair before the door with the apple in his hand.
‘Behold,’ the Lobsyer said, ‘the beauty and splendour of one of our family, thus decked out in glorious scarlet.’rr
It was not long before some one knocked at the house-door and cried, ‘Open the door, dear children; your mother is here, and has brought something back with her for each of you.’
Suddenly the door flew open and there stood the bear—the big, shaggy Bruin! Tired of standing so long in the yard, he had at last broken loose and found his way upstairs and into the attic.