Oh, I’ve done a terrible thing! I was chasing a spider when I knocked the queen’s flask off the shelf. Not just any old flask, either—the flask filled with water from the Fountain of Youth! The queen will have my head!

I have to think. What will I do? I have to settle down and clean up the mess. Now what? I know. I’ll find another flask just like the broken one. There’s one in the king’s chamber. It holds some kind of sparkling, magic water. I don’t know what it does. It might come from the Fountain of Old Age for all I know—but it will have to do!

The Careless Maid in The Story of Pretty Goldilocks, Blue Fairy Book. Picture by Ronald Searle.