the king answered, 'Such treachery can no man pardon. Quick, away
with him, and off with his head!'

So the false slave was put to death, that none might follow in his
footsteps, and the wedding feast was held, and the hearts of all
rejoiced that the true bridegroom had come at last.

These two lived happy and contentedly for a long while, when one
evening, as the young man was looking from the window, he saw on a
mountain that lay out beyond the town a great bright light.

'What can it be?' he said to his wife.

'Ah! do not look at it,' she answered, 'for it comes from the house of
a wicked witch whom no man can manage to kill.' But the princess had
better have kept silence, for her words made her husband's heart burn
within him, and he longed to try his strength against the witch's
cunning. And all day long the feeling grew stronger, till the next
morning he mounted his horse, and in spite of his wife's tears, he rode
off to the mountain.

The distance was greater than he thought, and it was dark before he
reached the foot of the mountain; indeed, he could not have found the
road at all had it not been for the bright light, which shone like the
moon on his path. At length he came to the door of a fine castle, which
had a blaze streaming from every window. He mounted a flight of steps
and entered a hall where a hideous old woman was sitting on a golden
chair.

She scowled at the young man and said, 'With a single one of the hairs
of my head I can turn you into stone.'

'Oh, what nonsense!' cried he. 'Be quiet, old woman. What could you
do with one hair?' But the witch pulled out a hair and laid it on his
shoulder, and his limbs grew cold and heavy, and he could not stir.

Now at this very moment the younger brother was thinking of him, and
wondering how he had got on during all the years since they had parted.
'I will go to the fig-tree,' he said to himself, 'to see whether he is
alive or dead.' So he rode through the forest till he came where the
fig-tree stood, and cut a slit in the bark, and waited. In a moment a
little gurgling noise was heard, and out came a stream of blood, running
fast. 'Ah, woe is me!' he cried bitterly. 'My brother is dead or dying!
Shall I ever reach him in time to save his life?' Then, leaping on his
horse, he shouted, 'Now, my steed, fly like the wind!' and they rode
right through the world, till one day they came to the town where the
young man and his wife lived. Here the princ