"I will help you," and she pulled
her scissors out of her pocket, and cut off the end of the beard.

As soon as the dwarf felt himself free he laid hold of a bag which lay
amongst the roots of the tree, and which was full of gold, and lifted it
up, grumbling to himself, "Uncouth people, to cut off a piece of my fine
beard. Bad luck to you!" and then he swung the bag upon his back, and
went off without even once looking at the children.

Some time after that Snow-white and Rose-red went to catch a dish of
fish. As they came near the brook they saw something like a large
grasshopper jumping towards the water, as if it were going to leap in.
They ran to it and found it was the dwarf. "Where are you going?" said
Rose-red; "you surely don't want to go into the water?"

"I am not such a fool!" cried the dwarf; "don't you see that the
accursed fish wants to pull me in?"

The little man had been sitting there fishing, and unluckily the wind
had twisted his beard with the fishing line; just then a big fish bit,
and the feeble creature had not strength to pull it out; the fish kept
the upper hand and pulled the dwarf towards him. He held on to all the
reeds and rushes, but it was of little good, he was forced to follow the
movements of the fish, and was in urgent danger of being dragged into
the water.

The girls came just in time; they held him fast and tried to free his
beard from the line, but all in vain, beard and line were entangled fast
together. Nothing was left but to bring out the scissors and cut the
beard, whereby a small part of it was lost. When the dwarf saw that he
screamed out, "Is that civil, you toadstool, to disfigure one's face?
Was it not enough to clip off the end of my beard? Now you have cut off
the best part of it. I cannot let myself be seen by my people. I wish
you had been made to run the soles off your shoes!" Then he took out a
sack of pearls which lay in the rushes, and without saying a word more
he dragged it away and disappeared behind a stone.

It happened that soon afterwards the mother sent the two children to the
town to buy needles and thread, and laces and ribbons. The road led them
across a heath upon which huge pieces of rock lay strewn here and there.
Now they noticed a large bird hovering in the air, flying slowly round
and round above them; it sank lower and lower, and at last settled near
a rock not far off. Directly afterwards they heard a loud, piteous cry.
They ran up and saw