bride, for they were beginning to grow old, and would fain see their son
married. before they were laid in their grave. The prince obeyed, had
his horses harnessed to his gilded chariot, and set out to woo his
bride. But when he came to the first cross-ways there lay a huge and
terrible lindorm right across the road, so that his horses had to come
to a standstill.

'Where are you driving to? ' asked the lindorm with a hideous voice.

'That does not concern you,' said the prince. 'I am the prince, and can
drive where I please.'

'Turn back,' said the lindorm. 'I know your errand, but you shall get no
bride until I have got a mate and slept by her side.'

The prince turned home again, and told the king and the queen what he
had met at the cross-roads; but they thought that he should try again on
the following day, and see whether he could not get past it, so that he
might seek a bride in another kingdom.

The prince did so, but got no further than the first cross-roads; there
lay the lindorm again, who stopped him in the same way as before.

The same thing happened on the third day when the prince tried to get
past: the lindorm said, with a threatening voice, that before the prince
could get a bride he himself must find a mate.

When the king and queen heard this for the third time they could think
of no better plan than to invite the lindorm to the palace, and they
should find him a mate. They thought that a lindorm would be quite well
satisfied with anyone that they might give him, and so they would get
some slave-woman to marry the monster. The lindorm came to the palace
and received a bride of this kind, but in the morning she lay torn in
pieces. So it happened every time that the king and queen compelled any
woman to be his bride.

The report of this soon spread over all the country. Now it happened
that there was a man who had married a second time, and his wife heard
of the lindorm with great delight. Her husband had a daughter by his
first wife who was more beautiful than all other maidens, and so gentle
and good that she won the heart of all who knew her. His second wife,
however, had also a grown-up daughter, who by herself would have
been ugly and disagreeable enough, but beside her good and beautiful
stepsister seemed still more ugly and wicked, so that all turned from
her with loathing.

The stepmother had long been annoyed that her husband's daughter was
so much more beautiful than her own, and i