Free London Folk Tales by Helen East Page A

strange voice crying, ‘I burn! I burn! I burn!’
    She still couldn’t see anyone, but just ahead there was an oven, all on its own, with a little wisp of smoke coming out. Hurriedly she opened the door, and inside was a loaf of bread, just beginning to burn at the edges. So she took it out as quick as could be, and laid it on the grass to cool.
    ‘Oh, thank you, thank you,’ said the oven. ‘I hope one day I can help you too. Break off a bite of bread if you like.’ Well she was very hungry, so she took a piece to eat, and went on her way wondering.
    By and by, she heard a miserable moaning, ‘I burst! I burst! I burst!’ Before long she came to a cow, dripping milk, udders so full they were scraping the ground.
    There was a bucket nearby, and milking stool too, so the girl sat down and set to. In no time the bucket was filled to the brim, and the cow was much relieved. ‘Oh, thank you, thank you,’ she mooed. ‘I hope one day I can help you too. Drink as much as you like.’ Well the girl was very thirsty, so she drank her fill, and went on her way wondering even more.
    After a while she heard a creaking voice calling, ‘I break, I break, I break!’
    Around the corner there was an apple tree, its branches so loaded with big ripe fruit it was bent right to the ground. ‘Pick me please,’ said the apple tree. So she picked the apples into neat heaps until the tree could straighten up again.
    ‘Thank you, thank you,’ it rustled. ‘I hope one day I can help you too. Take as many as you like.’
    Well she did like apples, so she walked on munching, wondering more than ever.
    At last she came to a dark wood with branches and brambles tangled all around the path. She pushed on through, and finally found a broken old gate to an empty garden, with a tumbledown house in the middle.
    She knocked on the door and it opened with a screech, and there was an old witch, with a nose down to her knees, fingernails as long as knives, and eyes even sharper.
    ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I suppose you want to eat and sleep, but it’s nothing for nothing in this house. You’re going to have to work for it, and hard too, or it will be the worse for you.’
    ‘I can work hard,’ said the girl, ‘for a little wage and a place to stay.’
    ‘Then you’d better come in,’ said the witch with a grin, ‘but watch the cat. She’ll bite and scratch.’
    The girl stepped back as a cat slid by, all teeth and claws and wild eyes.
    ‘Now start,’ said the witch. ‘Straight away. Mend the gate, dig the garden, clean the house from top to bottom, fetch the water and the wood, and then you can cook my food. But there’s one thing you must remember. Never, ever, ever look up the chimney. If you do I’ll break your bones and bury you under the marble stones.’
    So the girl got going, and when she was done, she was so worn out that she could barely see her own bite of food. But she didn’t forget to save some for the cat, though she got little thanks from the beast for that.
    And it went on like this, day after day, and if it didn’t get any better, well it least it never got worse. But as for her wages, they never seemed to come, and when she asked the witch for them, all she got was a laugh.
    Then one day the witch was out, and the cat was in, and prowling about. And all of a sudden it stopped, and stared at the girl, hard. ‘You know what to do, don’t you?’ it asked.
    ‘Goodness gracious!’ said the girl. ‘I never knew you could speak.’
    ‘Well if you don’t ask, you don’t get,’ said the cat. ‘And if you don’t look you don’t see.’
    ‘Look where?’ asked the girl.
    ‘Up the chimney of course,’ said the cat.
    So the girl did look and what did she see but a bag. A big bag. And when she got it down she saw it was full. Full of gold.
    ‘I’d pick it up and run if I were you,’ said the cat. So the girl grabbed the bag and put it on her back, and she ran out the house, across the garden, through the