The Golden Cup

 The Golden Cup

England

There was once a lady who had one little daughter, and this daughter had a beautiful golden cup. Now one day the lady was going out to visit her friends, and her little daughter asked if she might go too. Her mother said, "No, dear, I cannot take you now, but you can have your golden cup to play with until I come back."

When the mother had gone the little girl said to the maid, "Fetch me my golden cup out of the cupboard."

The maid said, "I can't fetch it now, I am too busy."

But the little girl, kept asking for the cup again and again, until at last the maid grew angry, and said, "If you ask for it again I'll cut your head off."

But the little girl asked for the cup once more, and thereupon the maid took her into the cellar, got the hatchet, and cut her head off. Then she got a pickaxe and a spade, and dug a hole, and buried the little girl under one of the stone flags in the cellar.

When the mother came back in the evening she said, "Where's baby?"

The maid said, "I have let her go out for a walk."

"Then go and seek her," said the mother.

The maid went out, and when she came back she said, "I have looked for her everywhere and cannot find her."

Then the mother was deeply grieved, and she sat up all that night, and all the next night. On the third night as she sat alone and wide awake she heard the voice of her daughter outside the door saying, "Can I have my golden cup?"

The mother opened the door, and when her daughter had repeated the question three times she saw her spirit, but the spirit vanished at once, and she never saw it more.