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84 GRIMM’S FAIRY TALES.
“Do not forget what you have promised, and it will be
all the better for you.”
So when the girl took the Queen and showed her the
empty rooms, and the great heaps of yarn, the wedding was at
once arranged, and the bridegroom rejoiced that he should
have so clever and diligent a wife, and praised her exceedingly.
“TI have three cousins,” said the girl, “and as they have
shown me a great deal of kindness, I would not wish to for¬
get them in my good fortune ; may I be allowed to invite them
to the wedding, and to ask them to sit at the table with us?"
The Queen and the bridegroom said at once,
“There is no reason against it.”
So when the feast began in came the three spinsters in
strange guise, and the bride said,
" Dear cousins, you are welcome.”
“ Oh,” said the bridegroom, “ how come you to have such
dreadfully ugly relations?”
And then he went up to the first spinster and said,
‘‘ How is it that you have such a broad flat foot?”
‘With treading,” answered she, “ with treading.”
Then he went up to the second and said,
“ How is it that you have such a great hanging lip ?”
‘With licking,’ answered she, " with licking.”
Then he asked the third,
“ How is it that you have such a broad thumb ?”
“With twisting thread,’ answered she, "with twisting
thread.”
Then the bridegroom said that from that time forward his
beautiful bride should never touch a spinning-wheel.
And so she escaped that tiresome flax-spinning.