There was great
jubilation in the palace, for this was the first baby the queen
had had, and there is as much happiness over a new baby in a
palace as in a cottage.
But there is one disadvantage of living near a wood: you do
not know quite who your neighbours may be. Everybody knew there
were in it several fairies, living within a few miles of the
palace, who always had had something to do with each new baby
that came; for fairies live so much longer than we, that
they can have business with a good many generations of human
mortals. The curious houses they lived in were well known also,
-- one, a hollow oak; another, a birch-tree, though nobody could
ever find how that fairy made a house of it; another, a hut of
growing trees intertwined, and patched up with turf and moss.
But there was another fairy who had lately come to the place,
and nobody even knew she was a fairy except the other fairies.
A wicked old thing she was, always concealing her power, and
being as disagreeable as she could, in order to tempt people to
give her offence, that she might have the pleasure of taking
vengeance upon them. The people about thought she was a witch,
and those who knew her by sight were careful to avoid offending
her. She lived in a mud house, in a swampy part of the forest.
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