George Webbe Dasent

“ Once on a time there was an old widow who lived far away from the rest of the world, up under a hill-side, with her three daughters. She was so poor that she had no stock but one single hen, which she prized as the apple of her eye ”

“ So he threw the sack over his shoulder, and dared not try to look into it again. When he reached the widow's cottage, he threw the sack in through the cottage door, and said—
"Here you have meat and drink from your daughter; she doesn't want for anything."
So, when the girl had been in the hill a good bit longer, one day a billy-goat fell down the trap-door.
"Who sent for you, I should like to know? you long-bearded beast!" said the Man o' the Hill, who was in an awful rage, and with that he whipped up the goat, and wrung his head off, and threw him down into the cellar. ”

“ The old wife went out, and round and round the cottage, looking and calling for her hen, but it was gone, and there was no getting it back.
So the woman said to her eldest daughter, "You must just go out and see if you can find our hen, for have it back we must, even if we have to fetch it out of the hill."
Well! the daughter was ready enough to go, so she set off and walked up and down, and looked and called, but no hen could she find. But all at once, just as she was about to give up the hunt, she heard some one calling out in a cleft in the rock—
"Your hen trips inside the hill! ”