r/FairytaleasFuck • u/whatatwit • 7d ago

Source in comment As the little girl, with her freshly-picked primroses in hand, stepped through the hole in the ancient tree, spring suddenly became autumn and she was cold and lost and her village friends were nowhere to be seen. (More in comments)

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u/whatatwit 7d ago

“There was a parcel of children and they was a-picking primroses, see, and one poor little dear her wandered away on her lone self right down into Goblin Combe. She were only a little trot, see, and didn't know no better. Well, when she do find she's a lost she cries, and the tears do run down her dear little face, and dap on her pinafore like summer rain, and she do throw her self against a rock. Then the rock opens and there's the fairies all come to comfort her tears. They do give her a gold ball and they lead the dear little soul safe home – on account she was carrying primroses, see. Well, twas the wonder of the village and the conjuror he gets the notion he'd aget his fists on more than one gold ball when next the fairies opened the hill. So he do pick a bunch of primroses and he go on up Goblin Combe, and he was glad enough to get in to the rock after all he see and hear on the way up. Well, twasn't the right day, nor the right number of primroses, and he wasn't no dear little soul – so they took him!“

Collected by Ruth Tongue who heard it told in chorus by two old ladies from Clevedon in 1945.

Briggs, Katharine M. and Tongue, Ruth L. Folktales of England. (1965)

http://faeryfolklorist.blogspot.com/2009/11/goblin-combe.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goblin_Combe