up the lid of the coffin, and sat
up alive and well.

'Oh! dear me, where am I?' she cried.

The Prince answered joyfully, 'You are with me,' and he told her all
that had happened, adding, 'I love you better than anyone in the whole
wide world. Will you come with me to my father's palace and be my wife?'

Snowdrop consented, and went with him, and the marriage was celebrated
with great pomp and splendour.

Now Snowdrop's wicked step-mother was one of the guests invited to the
wedding feast. When she had dressed herself very gorgeously for the
occasion, she went to the mirror, and said:

'Mirror, mirror, hanging there,
Who in all the land's most fair?'

and the mirror answered:

'My Lady Queen, you are fair, 'tis true,
But Snowdrop is fairer far than you.'

When the wicked woman heard these words she uttered a curse, and was
beside herself with rage and mortification. At first she didn't want to
go to the wedding at all, but at the same time she felt she would never
be happy till she had seen the young Queen. As she entered Snowdrop
recognised her, and nearly fainted with fear; but red-hot iron shoes
had been prepared for the wicked old Queen, and she was made to get into
them and dance till she fell down dead.(29)

(29) Grimm.

THE GOLDEN GOOSE

THERE was once a man who had three sons. The youngest of them was called
Dullhead, and was sneered and jeered at and snubbed on every possible
opportunity.

One day it happened that the eldest son wished to go into the forest to
cut wood, and before he started his mother gave him a fine rich cake and
a bottle of wine, so that he might be sure not to suffer from hunger or
thirst.

When he reached the forest he met a little old grey man who wished him
'Good-morning,' and said: 'Do give me a piece of that cake you have got
in your pocket, and let me have a draught of your wine--I am so hungry
and thirsty.'

But this clever son replied: 'If I give you my cake and wine I shall
have none left for myself; you just go your own way;' and he left the
little man standing there and went further on into the forest. There he
began to cut down a tree, but before long he made a false stroke with
his axe, and cut his own arm so badly that he was obliged to go home and
have it bound up.

Then the second son went to the forest, and his mother gave him a good
cake and a bottle of wine as she had to his elder brother. He too met
the little old