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Folk Tales of the United Kingdom — Part 1 (Tom Tit Tot · Cap o' Rushes · The Three Sillies · The Magpie's Nest)
Description
Folk Tales of the United Kingdom opens with four folk tales of England and Scotland as Joseph Jacobs collected them in his English Fairy Tales (London, 1890) — the book Jacobs made, in his own words, to be read aloud. They are read here complete, exactly as written.
In Tom Tit Tot, a girl who has eaten all five pies is set by the king to spin five skeins a day on pain of losing her head, and a little black thing that hops in at the window spins them for her — but if she cannot guess its name within the month, she is its own. In Cap o' Rushes, a rich gentleman's youngest daughter, cast out for saying she loves him "as fresh meat loves salt", hides herself in a cloak of rushes and goes into service in a great house. In The Three Sillies, a young gentleman finds a whole household weeping over a mallet that might one day fall, and will not marry the daughter until he has found three sillies greater than these. And in The Magpie's Nest, all the birds come to Mother Magpie to learn how nests are built, and every one of them flies away too soon.
Chapters
0:19 Tom Tit Tot
10:28 Cap o' Rushes
17:57 The Three Sillies
24:57 The Magpie's Nest
From English Fairy Tales (1890), collected by Joseph Jacobs — public domain. Tales of England and Scotland as Jacobs collected them; no Irish tales appear on this shelf. Music: gentle instrumental bed under the narration.
KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.