hen the Sun-Hero strove with all his might and kept the black wolves
at bay, and conquered his desire to sleep; but on the eighth night his
strength failed him, and he fell fast asleep. When he awoke a woman in
black stood beside him, who said: 'You have fulfilled your task very
badly, for you have let the two black wolves damage the Tree of the
Sun. I am the mother of the Sun, and I command you to ride away from
here at once, and I pronounce sentence of death upon you, for you
proudly let yourself be called the Sun-Hero without having done
anything to deserve the name.'

The youth mounted his horse sadly, and rode home. The people all
thronged round him on his return, anxious to hear his adventures, but
he told them nothing, and only to his mother did he confide what had
befallen him. But the old Queen laughed, and said to her son: 'Don't
worry, my child; you see, the Fairy has protected you so far, and the
Sun has found no one to kill you. So cheer up and be happy.'

After a time the Prince forgot all about his adventure, and married a
beautiful Princess, with whom he lived very happily for some time. But
one day when he was out hunting he felt very thirsty, and coming to a
stream he stooped down to drink from it, and this caused his death,
for a crab came swimming up, and with its claws tore out his tongue.
He was carried home in a dying condition, and as he lay on his
death-bed the black woman appeared and said: 'So the Sun has, after
all, found someone, who was not under the Fairy's spell, who has
caused your death. And a similar fate will overtake everyone under the
Sun who wrongfully assumes a title to which he has no right.'

_THE WITCH_[28]

Once upon a time there was a peasant whose wife died, leaving him with
two children--twins--a boy and a girl. For some years the poor man
lived on alone with the children, caring for them as best he could;
but everything in the house seemed to go wrong without a woman to look
after it, and at last he made up his mind to marry again, feeling that
a wife would bring peace and order to his household and take care of
his motherless children. So he married, and in the following years
several children were born to him; but peace and order did not come to
the household. For the step-mother was very cruel to the twins, and
beat them, and half-starved them, and constantly drove them out of the
house; for her one idea was to get them out of the way. All day she
thought of