heaped showers of abuse upon the two champions, calling
them fools and cowards to be afraid of one another. Other champions at
length took the place of the former, but the good fairies again
interfered, using all sorts of impediments, so that neither could
vanquish the other, and this lasted for many days, until the people
despaired of ever witnessing a fight again.

Let us now return to the Princess Bertha. The fright that she
experienced at finding herself in the grasp of this horrid monkey caused
her to swoon away but on recovering her senses she found herself on the
top of a tree in the midst of a forest, still in the monkey's grasp. It
was out of her power to escape, so she thought she would try and
ingratiate herself with her captor, so she said, "Good monkey, do me no
harm, for I am a king's daughter and the rightful heiress to the crown.
When I am queen I will grant you any boon you ask."

"Agreed," said the monkey; "I will hold you to your promise, for I am
not a common monkey, but an enchanted prince, forced to wear this
loathsome form through the malice of the witch queen in the reign of the
late king, because I would not wed her daughter."

"Alas! poor monkey," said the princess, "and how long art thou doomed to
wander about the earth in this disguise?"

"Until the death of the witch queen," said the monkey, "when I shall
resume my customary shape."

"Ah," said the princess, "there is then hope that I may yet attain to
the stature of my fellow mortals, for I, too, am under her curse."

While thus discoursing together a passer-by, perceiving the monkey in
the tree, but without seeing the princess, aimed a stone at the poor ape
with such force on the back of its head, that it fell senseless to the
foot of the tree. The princess deeming the animal dead, grieved much for
it, and called after the man who threw the stone, scolding him; but her
tiny voice was unheard, and the man was already far off.

Left alone on the top of a tree in the middle of a forest, what could
she do? She began to look around her, and on the next branch she saw a
crow hatching her eggs.

"Good crow," she said, "I am a king's daughter, have pity on me and
carry me on thy back to a stream, for I thirst."

"I will carry you thus far," said the crow, "if you promise to grant me
a boon when you wear the crown, for I am not a common crow, but an
enchanted queen suffering under the evil spell of the queen of the
witches."

When the p