he distant towns of
the kingdom, and to set right things that had gone wrong.

No sooner had he started than the girl's brother, who had wasted all
the riches his wife had brought him in recklessness and folly, and was
now very poor, chanced to come into the town, and as he passed he heard
a man say, 'Do you know that the king's son has married a woman who has
lost one of her hands?' On hearing these words the brother stopped and
asked, 'Where did he find such a woman?'

'In the forest,' answered the man, and the cruel brother guessed at once
it must be his sister.

A great rage took possession of his soul as he thought of the girl whom
he had tried to ruin being after all so much better off than himself,
and he vowed that he would work her ill. Therefore that very afternoon
he made his way to the palace and asked to see the king.

When he was admitted to his presence, he knelt down and touched the
ground with his forehead, and the king bade him stand up and tell
wherefore he had come.

'By the kindness of your heart have you been deceived, O king,' said he.
'Your son has married a girl who has lost a hand. Do you know why she
has lost it? She was a witch, and has wedded three husbands, and each
husband she has put to death with her arts. Then the people of the town
cut off her hand, and turned her into the forest. And what I say is
true, for her town is my town also.'

The king listened, and his face grew dark. Unluckily he had a hasty
temper, and did not stop to reason, and, instead of sending to the town,
and discovering people who knew his daughter-in-law and could have told
him how hard she had worked and how poor she had been, he believed all
the brother's lying words, and made the queen believe them too. Together
they took counsel what they should do, and in the end they decided that
they also would put her out of the town. But this did not content the
brother.

'Kill her,' he said. 'It is no more than she deserves for daring to
marry the king's son. Then she can do no more hurt to anyone.'

'We cannot kill her,' answered they; 'if we did, our son would assuredly
kill us. Let us do as the others did, and put her out of the town.' And
with this the envious brother was forced to be content.

[Illustration: The One-handed Girl befriends a snake]

The poor girl loved her husband very much, but just then the baby was
more to her than all else in the world, and as long as she had him with
her, she did not v