e lake.

Presently she heard the sound of a woodcutter's axe on the opposite bank
of the lake. She would speak with the woodcutter, and tell him her tale;
perhaps he could help her, but how was she to cross? She looked around
for a moment, and saw some water lilies. One of the leaves was detached
and seemed floating slowly on by itself. This she managed to reach, and
it was sufficiently strong to support her light form; then, spreading
out the scarf that covered her shoulders towards the wind for a sail,
she was slowly wafted to the opposite shore.

Now, as she was about to land, it happened that her foot slipped and she
fell into the water, uttering a slight scream. The woodcutter, who was
resting from his work, had his eyes fixed on the lake, and perceived
with surprise the pigmy princess sailing towards the shore. When,
therefore, he heard the scream, small as it was, he rushed down the bank
and seized her slight form in his huge hand. The princess, however, was
already insensible, but the good man wrung her clothes dry and kept her
in his bosom until she should recover. Now, during her swoon the queen
of the fairies appeared to her in a dream, and told her that the
woodcutter was the man she was destined to marry and to go at once with
him to a cave hard by where lived a holy hermit, whom she had already
commissioned to marry them.

Then, leaving her a magic wand which changed any object she touched into
whatever she pleased, she disappeared, enjoining her to use her own
judgement in everything.

Upon this she awoke, and found herself still in the woodcutter's bosom.
Now, the woodcutter was a young man of a stature approaching the
gigantic, immensely powerful, but very ugly, very clumsy, and very
stupid. At the first sight of him the princess recoiled, and could not
make up her mind to take him for a husband; but then she thought that
the fairies must know best what was for her good, so she reversed the
generally received order of etiquette and made him a proposal of
marriage.

The young man simpered, scratched his head, and looked very sheepish;
but having heard the princess's story, and being assured by her that the
fairies had ordained it so, he turned away his head, blushed, and
accepted her.

Then the princess, finding the magic wand beside her, waved it over her
head, and instantly converted the peasant's ragged clothes into a suit
of mail, his axe into a lance, a knife that he wore at his side into a