My dearest, darling, most beloved daughter married the worst, most devilish, awful magician you could possibly imagine. He shut her up in a stable, can you believe it? I finally have her back, thanks to a cooper who hid her in a barrel. Now she has flown into the hall as white as a sheet. “My lord and father,” she says, “unless you shut me up instantly in a room with seven iron doors, I am lost.”

He is here again, that gold-headed, gold-toothed devil!

The King of Bello Puojo in Cannetella, Grey Fairy Book. Illustration by H.J. Ford.