“He had you that time,” said the owl; “why ever did you look down at the shoes? The safest way to make sure of the fairies’ cobbler is to steal up from behind and catch hold of him, and should he seem unwilling to grant your request you have but to hold him over running water, and he will give you all you ask.”
“I will remember your good advice another time,” said the apprentice, and he went further into the wood. Now after a while he heard the sound of a waterfall, and came upon yet another glade that lay all silvered in the light of the moon, and he was just debating within himself whether this were not a good place in which to spend the night, when for the third time he caught sight of the fairies’ cobbler, seated upon a toadstool. Softly he crept up behind him, and took hold of the ma
