"Fierce animal mine,
If I find thee alive
I will marry thee although an animal."

She finds him at last, and he resumes his form.[6]

The fourth class consists of stories more or less distantly connected
with the first and third classes above mentioned, and which turn on the
heroine's separation from, and search after, her lost husband, usually
an animal in form.

The example we have selected from this class is from Venice (Bernoni,
XVII.), and is as follows:--

III. KING BEAN.

There was once an old man who had three daughters. One day the youngest
called her father into her room, and requested him to go to King Bean
and ask him whether he wished her for his wife. The poor old man said:
"You want me to go, but what shall I do; I have never been there?" "No
matter," she answered; "I wish you to obey me and go." Then he started
on his way, and asked (for he did not know) where the king lived, and
they pointed out the palace to him. When he was in the king's presence
he said: "Your Majesty's servant." The king replied: "What do you want
of me, my good old man?" Then he told him that his daughter was in love
with him, and wanted to marry him. The king answered: "How can she be in
love with me when she has never seen or known me?" "She is killing
herself with weeping, and cannot stand it much longer." The king
replied: "Here is a white handkerchief; let her dry her tears with it."

The old man took back the handkerchief and the message to his daughter,
who said: "Well, after three or four days you must go back again, and
tell him that I will kill myself or hang myself if he will not marry
me."

The old man went back, and said to the king: "Your Majesty, do me the
favor to marry my daughter; if not, she will make a great spectacle of
herself." The king replied: "Behold how many handsome portraits I have
here, and how many beautiful young girls I have, and not one of them
suits me." The old man said: "She told me also to say to you that if you
did not marry her she would kill herself or hang herself." Then the king
gave him a knife and a rope, and said: "Here is a knife if she wants to
kill herself, and here is a rope if she wants to hang herself."

The old man bore this message back to his daughter, who told her father
that he must go back to the king again, and not leave him until he
obtained his consent. The old man returned once more, and, falling on
his knees before the king, said: "Do me this great