``How can I,'' answered the spinning-wheel,
``seeing that my band is undone?''
``Kind distaff, open the door for us,'' said they.
``That would I gladly do,'' said the distaff,
``but I cannot walk, for my head is turned the
wrong way.''
``Weaving-loom, have pity, and open the door.''
``I am all topsy-turvy, and cannot move,''
sighed the loom.
``Fulling-water, open the door,'' they implored.
``I am off the fire,'' growled the fulling-water,
``and all my strength is gone.''
``Oh! Is there nothing that will come to our
aid, and open the door?'' they cried.
``I will,'' said a little barley-bannock, that
had lain hidden, toasting on the hearth; and it
rose and trundled like a wheel quickly across the
floor.
But luckily the housewife saw it, and she nipped
it between her finger and thumb, and, because it
was only half-baked, it fell with a ``splatch'' on
the cold floor.
Then the Fairies gave up trying to get into the
kitchen, and instead they climbed up by the windows
into the room where the good housewife's
husband was sleeping, and they swarmed upon
his bed and tickled him until he tossed about
and muttered as if he had a fever.
Then all of a sudden the good housewife
remembered what the Wise Man had said about the
fulling-water. She ran to the kitchen and lifted a
cupful out of the pot, and carried it in, and threw
it over the bed where her husband was.
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