" ye promised me what i liked to ask , and i have asked your son ; and your son i will have , " she replied , " so it is useless making such a din about it . but one thing i may tell you , for i know well that the knowledge will not help you . by the laws of fairy - land , i can not take the bairn till the third day after this , and if by that time you have found out my name i can not take him even then . but ye will not be able to find it out , of that i am certain . so i will call back for the boy in three days . " and with that she disappeared round the back of the pig - sty , and the poor mother fell down in a dead faint beside the stone . all that day , and all the next , she did nothing but sit in her kitchen and cry , and hug her baby tighter in her arms ; but on the day before that on which the fairy said that she was coming back , she felt as if she must get a little breath of fresh air , so she went for a walk in the fir wood behind the house . now in this fir wood there was an old quarry hole , in the bottom of which was a bonnie spring well , the water of which was always sweet and pure . the young widow was walking near this quarry hole , when , to her astonishment , she heard the whirr of a spinning - wheel and the sound of a voice lilting a song . at first she could not think where the sound came from ; then , remembering the quarry , she laid down her child at a tree root , and crept noiselessly through the bushes on her hands and knees to the edge of the hole and peeped over . she could hardly believe her eyes ! for there , far below her , at the bottom of the quarry , beside the spring well , sat the cruel fairy , dressed in her green frock and tall felt hat , spinning away as fast as she could at a tiny spinning - wheel . and what should she be singing but-- " little kens our guid dame at hame , whippety - stourie is my name . " 
why did the widowed mistress almost cry aloud for joy ?
she had learned the fairy 's secret , and her child was safe .
she had learned the fairy 's secret .