So matters went from pence to ha'pennies, as the saying goes, till finally the Princess could bear it no longer, so she found her cloak and stole down to the triple gates. Everything went very much as it had before, save that there was no Prince asleep under the tree where she had first found him. Then the Princess would have turned back, but the little brook which followed at her heel had swollen out into a broad, deep river, and there was nothing to do but go ahead, till she came to a cottage among the trees, and before the door sat an old, old woman, spinning gold thread out of moonlight. And by that any one could have told that she was a fairy, but the Princess thought it was always done that way in the world. "Oh, Mother," she cried, "how shall I find my way out of the forest?" But the old woman went on spinning, and the Princess thought that she had never seen anything fly so fast as the shuttle. "Where were you wanting to go?" she asked. "I am searching for the Prince from the west," said the Princess sadly. "Can you tell me where to find him?" The fairy shook her head and went on with her spinning, so fast that you could not see the shuttle at all. But the Princess begged so prettily that finally she said, "If I were looking for a Prince, I would follow my nose until I came to the Black Forest, and then I would ask the Wizard with Three Dragons, who knows all about it, and more, too! That is, unless I thought that I would be afraid in the Black Forest." "What is afraid?" asked the Little Princess. "I do not know that." And no more she did, so the fairy laughed, for she saw trouble coming for the Wizard. She stopped her wheel with a click, but for all her fast spinning, there was only enough gold thread to go around the second finger of the Princess's left hand. As for the Princess, she thanked the old lady very kindly, and set bravely off toward the Black Forest. But the Wizard with Three Dragons only laughed as he gazed into his crystal globe, for in it he could see everything that was happening in any place in the world, and I do not need Jacob Wise-man to tell me that a globe like that is worth having! Now, when the Prince had left the Princess in fairyland, he lost no time in riding back to the west. The old King, his father, was overjoyed when he heard of the Little Princess, and he gave the Prince a retinue that stretched for a mile behind him. [Illustration: THE WIZARD WITH THE THREE DRAGONS, AND HIS CRYSTAL GLOBE] But when they came to the place where all roads meet, the Prince was greatly perplexed, for this time, you see, he knew where he wanted to go. In the end, he trusted to chance and rode ahead, but they had not gone far before they came to the castle of the Wizard with Three Dragons, in the middle of the Black Forest. In the great hall sat the Wizard, himself, waiting for them, and he was as soft as butter.