kes to say his say," said
the fisherman.

"And moreover," said the old man, "I must blindfold you as well."

Thereupon he took from his pocket a handkerchief, and made ready to tie
it about the fisherman's eyes.

"And ain't I to see anything at all?" said the fisherman.

"No."

"Not even so much as a single feather?"

"No."

"Well, then," said the fisherman, "I wish I'd not come."

But the old man tied the handkerchief tightly around his eyes, and then
he was as blind as a bat.

"Now," said the old man, "throw your leg over what you feel and hold
fast."

The fisherman reached down his hand, and there felt the back of
something rough and hairy. He flung his leg over it, and whisk! whizz!
off he shot through the air like a sky-rocket. Nothing was left for him
to do but grip tightly with hands and feet and to hold fast. On they
went, and on they went, until, after a great while, whatever it was
that was carrying him lit upon the ground, and there the fisherman found
himself standing, for that which had brought him had gone.

The old man whipped the handkerchief off his eyes, and there the
fisherman found himself on the shores of the sea, where there was
nothing to be seen but water upon one side and rocks and naked sand upon
the other.

"This is the place for you to cast your nets," said the old magician;
"for if we catch nothing here we catch nothing at all."

The fisherman unrolled his nets and cast them and dragged them, and then
cast them and dragged them again, but neither time caught so much as
a herring. But the third time that he cast he found that he had caught
something that weighed as heavy as lead. He pulled and pulled, until
by-and-by he dragged the load ashore, and what should it be but a great
chest of wood, blackened by the sea-water, and covered with shells and
green moss.

That was the very thing that the magician had come to fish for.

From his pouch the old man took a little golden key, which he fitted
into a key-hole in the side of the chest. He threw back the lid; the
fisherman looked within, and there was the prettiest little palace that
man's eye ever beheld, all made of mother-of-pearl and silver-frosted as
white as snow. The old magician lifted the little palace out of the box
and set it upon the ground.

Then, lo and behold! a marvellous thing happened; for the palace
instantly began to grow for all the world like a soap-bubble, until it
stood in the moonlight gleaming and g