ed himself to the giant as a servant. In the morning the giant
had to go out to pasture his goats, and as he was leaving the house he
told the King's son that he must clean out the stable. "And after you
have done that," he said, "you need not do any more work to-day, for you
have come to a kind master, and that you shall find. But what I set you
to do must be done both well and thoroughly, and you must on no account
go into any of the rooms which lead out of the room in which you slept
last night. If you do, I will take your life."

"Well to be sure, he is an easy master!" said the Prince to himself as
he walked up and down the room humming and singing, for he thought there
would be plenty of time left to clean out the stable; "but it would be
amusing to steal a glance into his other rooms as well," thought the
Prince, "for there must be something that he is afraid of my seeing,
as I am not allowed to enter them." So he went into the first room.
A cauldron was hanging from the walls; it was boiling, but the Prince
could see no fire under it. "I wonder what is inside it," he thought,
and dipped a lock of his hair in, and the hair became just as if it were
all made of copper. "That's a nice kind of soup. If anyone were to taste
that his throat would be gilded," said the youth, and then he went into
the next chamber. There, too, a cauldron was hanging from the wall,
bubbling and boiling, but there was no fire under this either. "I will
just try what this is like too," said the Prince, thrusting another lock
of his hair into it, and it came out silvered over. "Such costly soup is
not to be had in my father's palace," said the Prince; "but everything
depends on how it tastes," and then he went into the third room. There,
too, a cauldron was hanging from the wall, boiling, exactly the same
as in the two other rooms, and the Prince took pleasure in trying this
also, so he dipped a lock of hair in, and it came out so brightly gilded
that it shone again. "Some talk about going from bad to worse," said the
Prince; "but this is better and better. If he boils gold here, what can
he boil in there?" He was determined to see, and went through the door
into the fourth room. No cauldron was to be seen there, but on a bench
someone was seated who was like a king's daughter, but, whosoever she
was, she was so beautiful that never in the Prince's life had he seen
her equal.

"Oh! in heaven's name what are you doing here?" said she who sat