The two orphans looked inside the hut and saw the witch resting there, her head near the threshold, one foot in one corner, the other foot in another corner, and her knees quite close to the ridge pole.
The new wife brought two daughters home with her, and they were beautiful and fair in appearance, but at heart were black and ugly.
Her godmother simply touched her with her wand, and, at the same moment, her clothes were turned into cloth of gold and silver, all decked with jewels.
The Frost knew all about the weakness of human beings; he knew very well that few of them are really good and kind.
‘You must take great pains to make my bed well, and shake it up thoroughly, so that the feathers fly about, and then in the world it snows, for I am Mother Hulda.’
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.
Cinder-Maid shook the tree and the first nut that fell she took up and opened, and what do you think she saw?—a beautiful silk dress blue as the heavens, all embroidered with stars.
In the morning O'Yoné came to her father with a little flute. ‘I made it myself.’ she said, ‘As you cannot take me with you, take the little flute, honourable father. Play on it sometimes, and think of me.’
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.
Early in the morning she had to get up to milk the cow, clean and polish everything in the house, and prepare breakfast for her father.
‘Vaccarella! Vaccarella! what shall I do? I have got all this hemp to spin, and I never learnt spinning. Yet if I don’t get through it somehow I shall get sadly beaten to-night. Dear little cow, tell me what to do!’
The little doll's eyes would begin to shine like glow-worms, and it would become alive. It would eat a little food, and sip a little drink, and then it would comfort Wassilissa and tell her how to act.