There once lived a widower who had two children: a son named Curly-locks and a daughter named Golden-tresses. With no wife, he was forced to leave the children by themselves all day while he worked, and so, afraid of what may happen with no one to look after them, he re-married.

The children’s new step mother was an ill tempered woman who had hidden her true nature from their father before their marriage. She loathed the children, and though their father soon regretted his choice of wife, it could not be undone. 

One day the Goodman brought home a hare to his wife and bade her make a soup for their dinner. The wife was a most excellent cook, but also a glutton, and so as the soup boiled she tasted it and tasted it until it was all gone. Realising what she had done and that she had no dinner to set before her husband, she hatched a wicked plan.

She called Curly-locks inside from where he had been playing in the sun, telling him he needed to wash his face before dinner. While he was stooped over the wash basin, she took up a hammer and struck him about the head. Curly-locks dropped to the floor and the wife slung him into the soup pot.

The Goodman soon came home and he, his wife, and Golden-tresses, sat down at the table to eat. 

“Where’s Curly-locks?” asked the Goodman.

“How should I ken?” Snapped the wife, and told him to eat the soup while it was hot.

They continued to eat in silence, until the Goodman lifted his spoon to see a little foot sitting amongst the soup. “This is Curly-locks foot!” He cried.

“You’re havering!” laughed the wife, “tis only the hare’s foot you see.”

But the goodman had found something else. “This is Curly-lock’s hand! My son’s hand!” He yelped, “I’d ken it onywhere, by the crook in his pinkie finger!”

“You mean to tell me,” said the wife, “ye dinna ken a hare’s hind foot when you see it?”

Cowed, the Goodman was silent, and went back to work confused and troubled.

Golden-tresses, meanwhile, had watched this exchange and seen the truth of it. She gathered up all the little bones from the empty bowls and carried them outside in her apron where she buried them beneath a white rose tree. 

Time passed, and as the tree came into bloom, those poor little bones grew into a milk-white doo that took to the sky in a flap of it’s wings. It came down to rest by a burnside where two women were washing clothes. It opened its beak and sang: 

Pew, pew,

My minny me slew,

My daddy me chew,

My sister gathered my banes,

And put them between twa milk-white stanes;

And I grew, and I grew,

To a milk-white doo,

And I took to my wings, and away I flew.

The women were amazed. “Sing again,” Said one, “and these clothes are yours!” So the bird sang and in turn was gifted the clothes, which it tucked under its wing and flew away with. 

Next it came to a house where a man was counting his coin, and sang to him as it had sung to the washerwomen. This man too was astonished, and promised to give the milk-white doo his silver if it would but sing again. And soon the bird had taken flight once more, clothes under one wing and a pouch of silver under the other.

Last the bird came to a mill and sang its song to the millers who worked there. They gasped and bade the bird sing again, in exchange for their millstone. So the bird did, and the millers lifted the heavy millstone onto its back. 

The bird flew on with its burden and came finally back to its father’s house. It alighted  on the roof with some pebbles in its beak, and these it threw down the chimney.

At this the family inside leapt up from their seats to see what was the matter. Golden-tresses was the youngest and ran the fastest. Once she was out the door the milk-white doo threw down the bundle of clothes at her feet. Next came the father, and the milk-white doo dropped him the pouch of silver.

Then, last, out came the step mother, and the milk-white doo dropped the millstone down on her head and killed her. 

Then the milk-white doo took wing and flew away, never to be seen or heard from again. With the gifts the doo had given them, the Goodman and his daughter lived in comfort to the end of their days.