(Udesc 2009)THE ROSE-TREE A man had two children,

(Udesc 2009)

THE ROSE-TREE

            A man had two children, a daughter by his first wife and a son by his second. His daughter was very beautiful, and her brother loved her but his mother hated her. The stepmother sent the daughter to the store to buy candles. Three times, the girl put down the candles to climb a ⁵stile, and a dog ³stole them.

            The stepmother told her to come and let her comb her hair. She claimed she could not comb it on her knee, or with the comb, and sent the girl for a piece of wood and an ⁶axe, and cut off her head.

            She ⁷stewed her heart and liver, and her husband tasted them and said they tasted ¹strangely. The brother did not eat but buried his sister under a rose-tree. Every day he ⁴wept under it.

            One day, the rose-tree flowered, and a white bird appeared. It sang to a cobbler and received a pair of red shoes; it sang to a watchmaker and received a gold watch and chain; it sang to three millers and received a millstone. Then it ²flew home and rattled the millstone against the ⁹eaves. The stepmother said that it thundered, and the boy ran out, and the bird dropped the shoes at his feet. It rattled the millstone again, the stepmother said that it thundered, the father went out, and the bird dropped the watch and chain at his feet. It rattled the millstone a third time, and the stepmother went out, and the bird ⁸dropped the millstone on her head.

By Joseph Jacobs

The word "strangely" (ref. 1) is being used as: