re going far away to-morrow, and I shall not see you again,
let me comb your head for the last time, as a remembrance of you.'

Good; the young woman stript off the reindeer skin, and let the widow
woman do as she wished. In the meantime the King's son threw the
reindeer skin into the fire unobserved.

'What smells of singeing here?' asked the young woman, and looking round
she saw her own husband. 'Woe is me! you have burnt my skin. Why did you
do that?'

'To give you back your human form again.'

'Alack-a-day! I have nothing to cover me now, poor creature that I am!'
cried the young woman, and transformed herself first into a distaff,
then into a wooden beetle, then into a spindle, and into all imaginable
shapes. But all these shapes the King's son went on destroying till she
stood before him in human form again.

Alas! wherefore take me home with you again,' cried the young woman,
'since the witch is sure to eat me up?'

'She will not eat you up,' answered her husband; and they started for
home with the child.

But when the witch wife saw them she ran away with her daughter, and if
she has not stopped she is running still, though at a great age. And the
Prince, and his wife, and the baby lived happy ever afterwards.(9)

(9) From the Russo-Karelian.

JACK AND THE BEANSTALK

JACK SELLS THE COW

ONCE upon a time there was a poor widow who lived in a little cottage
with her only son Jack.

Jack was a giddy, thoughtless boy, but very kind-hearted and
affectionate. There had been a hard winter, and after it the poor
woman had suffered from fever and ague. Jack did no work as yet, and by
degrees they grew dreadfully poor. The widow saw that there was no means
of keeping Jack and herself from starvation but by selling her cow; so
one morning she said to her son, 'I am too weak to go myself, Jack, so
you must take the cow to market for me, and sell her.'

Jack liked going to market to sell the cow very much; but as he was on
the way, he met a butcher who had some beautiful beans in his hand. Jack
stopped to look at them, and the butcher told the boy that they were
of great value, and persuaded the silly lad to sell the cow for these
beans.

When he brought them home to his mother instead of the money she
expected for her nice cow, she was very vexed and shed many tears,
scolding Jack for his folly. He was very sorry, and mother and son went
to bed very sadly that night; their last hope seemed gone.