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Updated: July 1, 2025
And as the hunter came near, he said: "Fair children, leave that muddy water, and come and drink with me." But Woodwender and Loveleaves answered: "Thanks, good hunter, but we have promised to drink nothing but running water." Still the hunter came nearer with his goblet, saying: "The water is dirty; it may do for swineherds and woodcutters, but not for such fair children as you.
When the night came, they found a mossy hollow in the trunk of an old tree, where they laid themselves down, and slept all the summer night for Woodwender and Loveleaves never feared the forest.
Reckoning Robin had a son called Hardhold, and Wary Will a daughter named Drypenny. There was not a sulkier girl or boy in the country, but their fathers made up their minds to make a young lord and a young lady of them; so they took the silk clothes which Woodwender and Loveleaves used to wear, to dress them, putting on the lords' children their coarse clothes.
They thought their children ought to look genteel, and Woodwender and Loveleaves like young swineherds. So they sent them to a wilder field, still nearer the forest, and gave them two great black hogs, more unruly than all the rest, to keep. One of these hogs belonged to Hardhold, and the other to Drypenny.
At first the lords would not listen; but as the children told how they had been made to sleep on straw, how they had been sent to herd hogs in the wild pasture, and what trouble they had with the unruly swine, the acorn planting grew slower, and at last the lords dropped their spades. Then Woodwender, catching up his father's spade, ran to the stream and threw it in.
When you see them listening, catch up their wooden spades, and keep them if you can till the sun goes down." Woodwender and Loveleaves thanked the raven, and where it flew they never stopped to see, but running to the lords began to tell as they were bidden.
Their toys were given to Hardhold and Drypenny; and at last the stewards' children sat at the chief tables, and slept in the best rooms, while Woodwender and Loveleaves were sent to herd the swine, and sleep on straw in the granary. The poor children had no one to take their part.
At last the leaves began to fade, and the flowers to fall. Lady Greensleeves said that Corner was coming. One moonlight night she heaped sticks on the fire, and set her door open, when Woodwender and Loveleaves were going to sleep, saying she expected some friends to tell her the news of the forest.
But the lords said: "There is no use for meat or drink. Let us plant our acorns." Loveleaves and Woodwender sat down, and ate that cake in great sorrow. When they had finished, both went to a stream that ran close by, and began to drink the clear water with a large acorn shell.
Woodwender and Loveleaves watched them flying home from all parts of the forest, and at last they saw a lady coming by the same path which led them to the dell. She wore a gown of a red colour; her yellow hair was braided and bound with a red band. In her right hand she carried a holly branch; but the strangest part of her dress was a pair of long sleeves, as green as the very grass.
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