came to a clearing in the wood, where three birches
grew at the crossing of three roads. The eldest prince took an arrow,
and shot it into the trunk of one of the birch trees. Turning to his
brothers he said:

'Let each of us mark one of these trees before we part on different
ways. When any one of us comes back to this place, he must walk round
the trees of the other two, and if he sees blood flowing from the mark
in the tree he will know that that brother is dead, but if milk flows he
will know that his brother is alive.'

So each of the princes did as the eldest brother had said, and when
the three birches were marked by their arrows they turned to their
step-sister and asked her with which of them she meant to live.

'With the eldest,' she answered. Then the brothers separated from each
other, and each of them set out down a different road, followed by their
beasts. And the step-sister went with the eldest prince.

After they had gone a little way along the road they came into a forest,
and in one of the deepest glades they suddenly found themselves opposite
a castle in which there lived a band of robbers. The prince walked up to
the door and knocked. The moment it was opened the beasts rushed in, and
each seized on a robber, killed him, and dragged the body down to
the cellar. Now, one of the robbers was not really killed, only badly
wounded, but he lay quite still and pretended to be dead like the
others. Then the prince and his step-sister entered the castle and took
up their abode in it.

The next morning the prince went out hunting. Before leaving he told his
step-sister that she might go into every room in the house except into
the cave where the dead robbers lay. But as soon as his back was turned
she forgot what he had said, and having wandered through all the other
rooms she went down to the cellar and opened the door. As soon as she
looked in the robber who had only pretended to be dead sat up and said
to her:

'Don't be afraid. Do what I tell you, and I will be your friend.

If you marry me you will be much happier with me than with your brother.
But you must first go into the sitting-room and look in the cupboard.
There you will find three bottles. In one of them there is a healing
ointment which you must put on my chin to heal the wound; then if I
drink the contents of the second bottle it will make me well, and the
third bottle will make me stronger than I ever was before. Then, when
your broth