traw all about you in the meadow?"

"But this is no ordinary straw," said the man. "It has a magic power,
and when it is scattered about it will make the hottest place as cold as
ice."

"Well," said Simple, "bring it along and come up into the ship. It may
be hot in the city."

So the man climbed up into the ship and they flew on. As they passed
over a wooded park they saw a man carrying a bundle of sticks.

"Ho!" cried Simple, "you below! Why do you carry those sticks so
carefully when all the woods about you are full of sticks?"

"But these are not ordinary sticks," said the man. "If I were to throw
them on the ground they would become soldiers, armed and ready for a
battle."

"Well," said Simple, "they are wonderful sticks indeed! Bring them up
into the ship. There may be a need for soldiers in the city."

So the man climbed up into the ship and they flew on. Soon they came to
the city, where the word soon went about that a ship was flying over,
and men and women came out into the streets and on to the roofs of the
houses to see what it might be like. And the King came out on his
balcony and saw Simple and his strange crew flying straight toward the
palace.

"Now, now," said the King, "what sort of a fellow is this? I cannot have
him marry my daughter. He has not a knight in his train--and as for
him--!" the King had no words in which to express his thought.

The Princess, too, looking out and seeing the flying ship with Simple in
the bow and the other strange folk behind him, repented of her rash
word, and said: "You must give this fellow some impossible task to do,
so that he will fail, for it is certain that I cannot wed him."

So the King sent for his courtiers, and bade them wait upon the man in
the flying ship and say to him that before his daughter could be given
in marriage a flask of water must be brought this day from a spring at
the end of the world.

The man with the wonderful hearing had his ear to the deck of the ship,
and he heard this order, and reported it to Simple, who lamented, and
said: "How can I bring a flask of water from the end of the world? It
may take me a year to go there and back--perhaps even the rest of my
life."

But the man with the bound leg said: "You forget that I am here. When
the summons comes I will take the flask and go for the water."

So when the messenger came Simple answered quietly that the order would
be obeyed at once.

The man with the bound leg unfas