Andrew Lang

The Green Fairy Book Andrew Lang

There was once upon a time a castle in the middle of a thick wood where lived an old woman quite alone, for she was an enchantress. In the daytime she changed herself into a cat or a night-owl, but in the evening she became like an ordinary woman again. She could entice animals and birds to come to her, and then she would kill and cook them. If a pretty girl came within her boundary, the old enchantress changed her into a bird, and shut her up in a wicker cage. She had quite seven thousand of such cages in the castle with very rare birds in them.