Tom Tit Tot Fairy Tale

Long ago, in an English village, there lived a woman and her only daughter. The daughter was pretty, but very lazy. She slept from morning till noon and would not lift a finger to help in the house.

One day her mother baked five pies and put them on the windowsill to cool. "Daughter, when the pies have cooled, put them on the shelf," she said, and she went off to market. But the daughter thought, "The pies will be softer if I eat them now," and she ate all five.

When her mother came back and saw that the pies were gone, she was very upset. She sat down by the door to spin, and out of annoyance she began to sing, "My daughter has eaten five pies today, five pies today!"

Just then the king was riding along the road. He could not make out the words of the song, so he asked, "Good woman, what are you singing about?" The woman was ashamed to admit that her daughter was lazy, so she told a lie. "My daughter has spun five skeins today, five skeins today!"

The king was amazed. "Five skeins in a day? I have never heard of such a skilled spinner! I will marry her. For a whole year she shall wear fine dresses, eat delicious food and enjoy herself. But in the last month of the year she must spin five skeins every day. If she doesn't, she will be punished."

The girl married the king and lived happily for a whole year. She forgot all about spinning. But when the last month of the year came, the king took her to a room in a tower. In it there was nothing but a spinning wheel and a heap of wool. "From tomorrow you will spin five skeins every day," said the king, and he locked the door.

The poor girl did not know how to spin at all. She sat down on the floor and cried. Suddenly someone tapped at the window. She looked up, and there on the windowsill sat a little black imp, swishing its long tail. "Why are you crying?" asked the imp.

The girl told him everything. The imp twirled his tail and laughed. "I'll help you. Every morning I will take the wool, and every evening I will bring you five skeins of yarn. But on one condition: every evening you must guess my name three times. If you haven't guessed it by the end of the month, you will be mine!"

There was nothing else she could do, so the girl agreed. From that day on, the imp took the wool every morning and brought back five skeins of beautiful yarn every evening. "Well, what is my name?" he would ask. "Is it Bill?" "No!" "Ned?" "No!" "Mark?" "No!" The imp would twirl his tail and fly off sniggering. And with every day his laugh grew louder.

On the evening before the last day of the month, the king was having supper with the girl. He laughed and said, "I saw a strange thing out hunting today. Deep in the forest there is a pit. In that pit a little black imp was turning a spinning wheel, twirling his long tail and singing, 'Nobody knows and nobody can guess that my name is Tom Tit Tot!'"

When the girl heard this, her heart leapt with joy, but she did not let it show. The next evening the imp brought the last skeins and grinned. "Well, today is the last day. What is my name?"

The girl pretended to think hard. "Is it Solomon?" "No!" sniggered the imp. "Zebedee?" "No!" he cried gleefully, and he reached out his hand to grab her. Then the girl laughed, pointed at him and said, "Your name is Tom Tit Tot!"

The imp gave a shriek. He screamed with such rage that he flew out of the window and vanished into the darkness. No one ever saw him again. From that day on, the girl really learned to spin and stopped being lazy. And her mother promised never to tell lies again.