bring forth, and so escape all this suffering!'

"And the fairy heard this, and took her at her word; and, as you will
see, she cut her cloth without measuring it first, from which came a sad
misfit. And soon after she was ill, and this being told to her husband,
he replied, 'Good news, and may she soon be gone!' but he changed his
tone when he heard that he was to have an heir. Then he flew to her and
begged her pardon, and made great rejoicings.

"Truly there was horror and sorrow when in due time the lady, instead of
a human child, brought forth a boar-pig. Yet the parents were so
possessed with the joy of having any kind of offspring that they ended by
making a great pet of the creature, who was, however, human in his ways,
and could in time talk with grace and ease. {48a} And when he grew older
he began to run after the girls, and they to run away from him, screaming
as if the devil had sent him for them.

"There lived near the palace a beautiful but very poor girl, and with her
the young Boar fell desperately in love. So he asked her parents for her
hand; but they, poor as they were, laughed at him, saying that their
daughter should never marry a swine. But the young lady had well
perceived that this was no common or lazy pig, such as never gets a ripe
pear--_porco pigro non mangia pere mature_--as he had shown by wooing
her; and, secondly, because she was poor and ambitious, and daring enough
to do anything to become rich and great. {48b}

"Now she surmised that there were eggs under the chopped straw in this
basket, or more in the youth than people supposed; and she was quite
right, for on the bridal night he not only unclothed himself of silk and
purple and fine linen, but also doffed his very skin or boar's hide, and
appeared as beautiful as a Saint Sebastian freshly painted.

"Then he said to her, 'Be not astonished to find me good-looking at the
rate of thirty sous to a franc, nor deem thyself over-paid, for if we had
not wedded, truly I should have gone on pigging it to the end of my days,
having been doomed--like many men--to be a beast so long as I was a
bachelor, or till a beautiful maid would marry me. Yet there is a
condition attached to this, which is, that I can only be a man as thou
seest me by night, for I must be a boar by day. And shouldst thou ever
betray this secret to any one, or if it be found out, then I shall again
be a boar all the time for life, and thou turn into a frog becaus