usual
dreadful roar the monster issued from the chapel. La Rose leapt past
it and ran for the leaden shrine. It followed him with hideous howls,
and he only reached the protective sanctuary in time. Seizing the
little bottle which lay there, he fearlessly fronted the beast and
sprinkled its contents over its head. Instantly it changed into a
beautiful princess, whom La Rose escorted to her delighted parents. La
Rose and the princess were betrothed and duly married, and shortly
afterward the King gave up his throne to his son-in-law.

One day the new King was inspecting the regiment of dragoons to which
he had once belonged.

"Colonel," he said, "I miss a man from your regiment."

"It is true, sire," replied the Colonel. "It is an old fellow called
Pere La Chique, whom we have left at the barracks playing his violin,
the old good-for-nothing!"

"I wish to see him," said the King.

Pere La Chique was brought forward trembling, and the King, tearing
the epaulettes from the shoulders of the captain who had stolen his
wife, placed them on those of Pere La Chique. He then gave orders for
a great fire to be lit, in which were burned the wicked captain and
the wife who had so soon forgotten her husband.

La Rose and his Queen lived happily ever afterward--which is rather
odd, is it not, when one thinks of the treatment meted out to his
resuscitated spouse? But if the lights in folk-tale are bright, the
shadows are correspondingly heavy, and rarely does justice go hand in
hand with mercy in legend!

_Norouas, the North-west Wind_

Brittany has an entire cycle of folk-tales dealing with the subject of
the winds--which, indeed, play an extraordinary part in Breton
folk-lore. The fishermen of the north coast frequently address the
winds as if they were living beings, hurling opprobrious epithets at
them if the direction in which they blow does not suit their purpose,
shaking their fists at them in a most menacing manner the while. The
following story, the only wind-tale it is possible to give here, well
illustrates this personalization of the winds by the Breton folk.

There was once a goodman and his wife who had a little field on which
they grew flax. One season their patch yielded a particularly fine
crop, and after it had been cut they laid it out to dry. But Norouas,
the North-west Wind, came along and with one sweep of his mighty wings
tossed it as high as the tree-tops, so that it fell into the sea and
was lost