as fast as possible among the fir-trees, and inflicted
such a vehement blow with his sword on the wolf's head, that the animal,
groaning piteously, fell to the ground. Hereupon there came over the
young man all at once a strange mood of regret and compassion for his
poor victim. Instead of putting it immediately to death, he bound up the
wounds as well as he could with moss and twigs of trees, placed it on a
sort of canvas sling on which he was in the habit of carrying great
fagots, and with much labour brought it home, in hopes that he might be
able at last to cure and tame his fallen adversary. He did not find his
father in the cottage, and it was not without some fear and anxiety that
he laid the wolf on his own bed, which was made of moss and rushes, and
over which he had nailed St. George and the Dragon. He then turned to
the fire-place of the small hut, in order to prepare a healing salve for
the wounds. While he was thus occupied, how much was he astonished to
hear the moanings and lamentations of a human voice from the bed on
which he had just before deposited the wolf. On returning thither his
wonder was inexpressible on perceiving, instead of the frightful wild
beast, a most beautiful damsel, on whose head the wound which he had
inflicted was bleeding through her fine golden hair, and whose right
arm, in all its grace and snow-white luxuriance, was stretched out
motionless, for it had been broken by the blow from his axe.

"Pray," said she, "have pity, and do not kill me outright. The little
life that I have still left is, indeed, painful enough, and may not
last long; yet, sad as my condition is, it is yet tenfold better than
death."

The young man then sat down weeping beside her, and she explained to him
that she was the daughter of a magician, on the other side of the
mountain, who had sent her out in the shape of a wolf to collect plants
from places which, in her own proper form, she could not have reached.
It was but in terror she had made that violent spring which the youth
had mistaken for an attack on him, when her only wish had been to pass
by him.

"But you directly broke my right arm," said she, "though I had no evil
design against you."

How she had now regained her proper shape she could not imagine, but to
the youth it was quite clear that the picture of St. George and the
Dragon had broken the spell by which the poor girl had been transformed.

While the son was thus occupied, the old man