reatures, to cut off a bit of my beautiful
beard, of which I am so proud! I leave the cuckoos to pay you for what
you did." Saying this, he swung the sack across his shoulder and went
off without even casting a glance at the children.

Not long afterwards the two sisters went to angle in the brook,
meaning to catch fish for dinner. As they were drawing near the water
they perceived something, looking like a large grasshopper, springing
towards the stream, as if it were going in. They hurried up to see
what it might be, and found that it was the dwarf. "Where are you
going?" said Rose-Red. "Surely you will not jump into the water?"

"I'm not such a simpleton as that!" yelled the little man. "Don't you
see that a wretch of a fish is pulling me in?"

The dwarf had been sitting angling from the side of the stream when,
by ill-luck, the wind had entangled his beard in his line, and just
afterwards a big fish taking the bait, the unamiable little fellow had
not sufficient strength to pull it out; so the fish had the advantage,
and was dragging the dwarf after it. Certainly he caught at every
stalk and spray near him, but that did not assist him greatly; he was
forced to follow all the twistings of the fish, and was perpetually in
danger of being drawn into the brook.

The girls arrived just in time. They caught hold of him firmly, and
endeavoured to untwist his beard from the line, but in vain; it was
too tightly entangled. There was nothing left but again to make use of
the scissors; so they were taken out, and the tangled portion was cut
off.

When the dwarf noticed what they were about, he exclaimed, in a great
rage, "Is this how you damage my beard? Not content with making it
shorter before, you are now making it still smaller, and completely
spoiling it. I shall not ever dare to show my face to my friends.
I wish you had missed your way before you took this road." Then he
fetched a sack of pearls that lay among the rushes, and saying not
another word, hobbled off and disappeared behind a large stone.

Soon after this it chanced that the poor widow sent her children to
the town to purchase cotton, needles, ribbon and tape. The way to the
town ran over a common on which in every direction large masses
of rocks were scattered about. The children's attention was soon
attracted to a big bird that hovered in the air. They remarked that
after circling slowly for a time, and gradually getting nearer to
the ground, it all