the Prince and his bride were sitting in the garden,
when a crow said to them: "Ungrateful creatures! Have you forgotten the
two poor maidens who helped you in your distress? Must they spin gold
flax for ever? Have no pity on the old witch. The three maidens are
princesses, whom she stole away when they were children together, with
all the silver utensils, which she turned into gold flax. Poison were
her fittest punishment."

The Prince was ashamed of having forgotten his promise and set out at
once, and by great good fortune reached the hut when the old woman was
away. The maidens had dreamed that he was coming, and were ready to go
with him, but first they made a cake in which they put poison, and
left it on a table where the old woman was likely to see it when she
returned. She _did_ see it, and thought it looked so tempting that she
greedily ate it up and at once died.

In the secret chamber were found fifty wagon-loads of gold flax, and as
much more was discovered buried. The hut was razed to the ground, and
the Prince and his bride and her two sisters lived happily ever after.

THE TERRIBLE HEAD

Once upon a time there was a king whose only child was a girl. Now the
King had been very anxious to have a son, or at least a grandson, to
come after him, but he was told by a prophet whom he consulted that his
own daughter's son should kill him. This news terrified him so much that
he determined never to let his daughter be married, for he thought it
was better to have no grandson at all than to be killed by his grandson.
He therefore called his workmen together, and bade them dig a deep round
hole in the earth, and then he had a prison of brass built in the hole,
and then, when it was finished, he locked up his daughter. No man ever
saw her, and she never saw even the fields and the sea, but only the sky
and the sun, for there was a wide open window in the roof of the house
of brass. So the Princess would sit looking up at the sky, and watching
the clouds float across, and wondering whether she should ever get out
of her prison. Now one day it seemed to her that the sky opened above
her, and a great shower of shining gold fell through the window in the
roof, and lay glittering in her room. Not very long after, the Princess
had a baby, a little boy, but when the King her father heard of it he
was very angry and afraid, for now the child was born that should be his
death. Yet, cowardly as he was, he had not qu