ed, and preparations were made for her
living with the child, quite alone, in a secluded wing of the castle,
looking out on the pleasure-park. The queen did as the wise woman had
told her; she gave up the child immediately, and the nurse took it and
lived with it there.

When the king came home and heard that a daughter had been born to him,
he was of course very pleased and happy, and wanted to see her at once.

The queen had then to tell him this much of the story, that it had been
foretold that it would cause great sorrow and misfortune if either he or
she got a sight of the child until it had completed its fourteenth year.

This was a long time to wait. The king longed so much to get a sight of
his daughter, and the queen no less than he, but she knew that it was
not like other children, for it could speak immediately after it was
born, and was as wise as older folk. This the nurse had told her, for
with her the queen had a talk now and again, but there was no one who
had ever seen the princess. The queen had also seen what the wise woman
could do, so she insisted strongly that her warning should be obeyed.
The king often lost his patience, and was determined to see his
daughter, but the queen always put him off the idea, and so things went
on, until the very day before the princess completed her fourteenth
year.

The king and the queen were out in the garden then, and the king said,
'Now I can't and I won't wait any longer. I must see my daughter at
once. A few hours, more or less, can't make any difference.'

The queen begged him to have patience till the morning. When they had
waited so long, they could surely wait a single day more. But the king
was quite unreasonable. 'No nonsense,' said he; 'she is just as much
mine as yours, and I will see her,' and with that he went straight up to
her room.

He burst the door open, and pushed aside the nurse, who tried to
stop him, and there he saw his daughter. She was the loveliest young
princess, red and white, like milk and blood, with clear blue eyes and
golden hair, but right in the middle of her forehead there was a little
tuft of brown hair.

The princess went to meet her father, fell on his neck and kissed him,
but with that she said, 'O father, father! what have you done now?
to-morrow I must die, and you must choose one of three things: either
the land must be smitten with the black pestilence, or you must have a
long and bloody war, or you must as soon as