---
title: But when Childe Wynd heard the news, he swore a mighty oath to rescu… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But when Childe Wynd heard the news, he swore a mighty oath to rescue his sister and revenge her on her cruel stepmother. Who acts: Childe, Worm. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/39/24/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [English Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/) / [The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/39/) / 24

# English Fairy Tales, The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh, sentence 24

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But when Childe Wynd heard the news, he swore a mighty oath to rescue his sister and revenge her on her cruel stepmother.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Childe, Worm · **What happens:** hear, swear, rescue, sister · **To what, where:** news, mighty oath

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Childe, Worm), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg7439:39:24
# text = But when Childe Wynd heard the news, he swore a mighty oath to rescue his sister and revenge her on her cruel stepmother.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
2	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	Childe	Childe	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	Wynd	Wynd	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	flat	_	_
5	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	news	news	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	swore	swear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	mighty	mighty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	oath	oath	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	rescue	rescue	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	advcl	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	revenge	revenge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	conj	_	_
20	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
21	on	on	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
23	cruel	cruel	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	stepmother	stepmother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | Childe | the news |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer news=Stimulus |
| 2 | **swear** | past | Childe | a mighty oath |  |  |  |  | vn conjecture-29.5 «NP V NP to be NP»: agent=Agent oath=Eventuality |
| 3 | **rescue** | to-infinitive | Childe *not said here* |  |  |  |  | on Worm's cruel stepmother | vn steal-10.5 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **sister** |  | Worm |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7439 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/39/23/)
- next →: [sentence 25](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/39/25/)
- ↑ back to [The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/39/)