Chapter XLIII: The Three Heads of the Well

_Source_.--Halliwell, p. 158. The second wish has been somewhat euphemised.

_Parallels_.--The story forms part of Peele's _Old Wives' Tale_, where the rhyme was

_A Head rises in the well_,
Fair maiden, white and red,
Stroke me smooth and comb my head,
And thou shalt have some cockell-bread.

It is also in Chambers, _l.c._, 105, where the well is at the World's End (_cf._ No. xli.). The contrasted fates of two step-sisters, is the Frau Holle (Grimm, No. 24) type of Folk-tale studied by Cosquin, i. 250, _seq._ “Kate Crackernuts” (No. xxxvii.) is a pleasant contrast to this.