ghter heard
about it too, and she came to see the strange girl; and what did she
find her doing but cutting out the pattern of a gown from brown paper;
and as she cut away, the paper became the richest silk she ever saw. The
witch's daughter looked on with greedy eyes, and, says she, 'What would
you be satisfied to take for that scissors?' 'I'll take nothing,' says
she, 'but leave to spend one night outside the prince's chamber.' Well,
the proud lady fired up, and was going to say something dreadful; but
the scissors kept on cutting, and the silk growing richer and richer
every inch. So she promised what the girl had asked her.

When night came on she was let into the palace and lay down till the
prince was in such a dead sleep that all she did couldn't awake him.
She sung this verse to him, sighing and sobbing, and kept singing it the
night long, and it was all in vain:

Four long years I was married to thee; Three sweet babes I bore to thee;
Brown Bear of Norway, turn to me.

At the first dawn the proud lady was in the chamber, and led her away,
and the footman of the horns put out his tongue at her as she was
quitting the palace.

So there was no luck so far; but the next day the prince passed by again
and looked at her, and saluted her kindly, as a prince might a farmer's
daughter, and passed one; and soon the witch's daughter passed by, and
found her combing her hair, and pearls and diamonds dropping from it.

Well, another bargain was made, and the princess spent another night of
sorrow, and she left the castle at daybreak, and the footman was at his
post and enjoyed his revenge.

The third day the prince went by, and stopped to talk with the strange
woman. He asked her could he do anything to serve her, and she said he
might. She asked him did he ever wake at night. He said that he often
did, but that during the last two nights he was listening to a sweet
song in his dreams, and could not wake, and that the voice was one that
he must have known and loved in some other world long ago. Says she,
'Did you drink any sleepy posset either of these evenings before you
went to bed?' 'I did,' said he. 'The two evenings my wife gave me
something to drink, but I don't know whether it was a sleepy posset or
not.' 'Well, prince,' said she, 'as you say you would wish to oblige me,
you can do it by not tasting any drink to-night.' 'I will not,' says he,
and then he went on his walk.

Well, the great lady came soon after