Tom Tit Tot

“Tom Tit Tot”

English Folk-Lore

Once upon a time there were a woman, and she baked five pies. And when they come out of the oven, they was that overbaked the crust were too hard to eat. So she says to her darter:

“Maw’r,”¹

But the gal, she says to herself: “Well, if they’ll come agin, I’ll ate ’em now.” And she set to work and ate ’em all, first and last.

Well, come supper-time, the woman she said: “Goo you, and git one o’ them there pies. I dare say they’ve come agin now.”

The gal she went an’ she looked, and there warn’t nothin’ but the dishes. So back she come and says she: “Noo, they ain’t come agin.”

“Not none on ’em?” says the mother.

“Not none on ’em,” says she.

“Well, come agin, or not come agin,” says the woman, “I’ll ha’ one for supper.”

“But you can’t, if they ain’t come,” says the gal.

“But I can,” says she. “Goo you and bring the best of em.”

“Best or worst,” says the gal, “I’ve ate ’em all, and you can’t ha’ one till that’s come agin.”

Well, the woman she were wholly bate,²

The king he were a-comin’ down the street, an’ he heard her sing, but what she sang he couldn’t hear, so he stopped and said:

“What were that you was a-singing of, maw’r?”

The woman she were ashamed to let him hear what her darter had been a-doin’, so she sang, ’stids³

“S’ars o’ mine!” said the king, “I never heerd tell of any one as could do that.”

Then he said: “Look you here, I want a wife, and I’ll marry your darter. But look you here,” says he, “ ’leven months out o’ the year she shall have all the vittles she likes to eat, and all the gowns she likes to get, and all the company she likes to have; but the last month o’ the year she’ll ha’ to spin five skeins every day, an’ if she doon’t, I shall kill her.”

“All right,” says the woman; for she thought what a grand marriage that was. And as for them five skeins, whan it came to the time, there’d be plenty o’ ways of getting out of it, and likeliest, he’d ha’ forgot about it.