oever he drank, he must not forget to take off the halter, or else
he himself would never get away from Farmer Weatherbeard as long as he
lived.

'No,' said the man, 'I will not forget.'

When he got to the market, he received the three hundred dollars, but
Farmer Weatherbeard treated him so handsomely that he quite forgot to
take off the halter; so Farmer Weatherbeard went away with the horse.

When he had got some distance he had to go into an inn to get some more
brandy; so he set a barrel full of red-hot nails under his horse's nose,
and a trough filled with oats beneath its tail, and then he tied the
halter fast to a hook and went away into the inn. So the horse stood
there stamping, and kicking, and snorting, and rearing, and out came a
girl who thought it a sin and a shame to treat a horse so ill.

'Ah, poor creature, what a master you must have to treat you thus!' she
said, and pushed the halter off the hook so that the horse might turn
round and eat the oats.

'I am here!' shrieked Farmer Weatherbeard, rushing out of doors. But
the horse had already shaken off the halter and flung himself into
a goose-pond, where he changed himself into a little fish. Farmer
Weatherbeard went after him, and changed himself into a great pike. So
Jack turned himself into a dove, and Farmer Weatherbeard turned himself
into a hawk, and flew after the dove and struck it. But a Princess was
standing at a window in the King's palace watching the struggle.

'If thou didst but know as much as I know, thou wouldst fly in to me
through the window,' said the Princess to the dove.

So the dove came flying in through the window and changed itself into
Jack again, and told her all as it had happened.

'Change thyself into a gold ring, and set thyself on my finger,' said
the Princess.

'No, that will not do,' said Jack, 'for then Farmer Weatherbeard will
make the King fall sick, and there will be no one who can make him well
again before Farmer Weatherbeard comes and cures him, and for that he
will demand the gold ring.'

'I will say that it was my mother's, and that I will not part with it,'
said the Princess.

So Jack changed himself into a gold ring, and set himself on the
Princess's finger, and Farmer Weatherbeard could not get at him there.
But then all that the youth had foretold came to pass.

The King became ill, and there was no doctor who could cure him till
Farmer Weatherbeard arrived, and he demanded the ring which wa