seen before. The maiden shrieked out
when she saw, instead of the fawn, a man standing there with a gold
crown on his head. But the King looked kindly on her, took her by the
hand, and said,

"Will you go with me to my castle, and be my dear wife?"

"Oh yes," answered the maiden, "but the fawn must come too. I could not
leave him." And the King said,

"He shall remain with you as long as you live, and shall lack nothing."
Then the fawn came bounding in, and the sister tied the cord of rushes
to him, and led him by her own hand out of the little house.

The King put the beautiful maiden on his horse, and carried her to his
castle, where the wedding was held with great pomp; so she became lady
Queen, and they lived together happily for a long while; the fawn was
well tended and cherished, and he gambolled about the castle garden.

Now the wicked stepmother, whose fault it was that the children were
driven out into the world, never dreamed but that the sister had been
eaten up by wild beasts in the forest, and that the brother, in the
likeness of a fawn, had been slain by the hunters. But when she heard
that they were so happy, and that things had gone so well with them,
jealousy and envy arose in her heart, and left her no peace, and her
chief thought was how to bring misfortune upon them.

Her own daughter, who was as ugly as sin, and had only one eye,
complained to her, and said,

"I never had the chance of being a Queen."

"Never mind," said the old woman, to satisfy her; "when the time comes,
I shall be at hand."

After a while the Queen brought a beautiful baby-boy into the world, and
that day the King was out hunting. The old witch took the shape of the
bedchamber woman, and went into the room where the Queen lay, and said
to her,

"Come, the bath is ready; it will give you refreshment and new strength.
Quick, or it will be cold."

Her daughter was within call, so they carried the sick Queen into the
bath-room, and left her there. And in the bath-room they had made a
great fire, so as to suffocate the beautiful young Queen.

When that was managed, the old woman took her daughter, put a cap on
her, and laid her in the bed in the Queen's place, gave her also the
Queen's form and countenance, only she could not restore the lost eye.
So, in order that the King might not remark it, she had to lie on the
side where there was no eye. In the evening, when the King came home and
heard that a little son was bor