“If you will go,” she replied, “I will get up at once and make ready some soup for the Old Man, and then I will feed the pretty little hen, and the cock, and the beautiful brindled cow.” She thought the Old Man was up already, and looked round at his bed. He, however, was not lying in it, but a stranger. And while she was looking at him, and becoming aware that he was young and handsome, he awoke, sat up in bed, and said, “I am a King’s Son, and was enchanted by a wicked Witch, and made to live in this wood, as an old gray-haired man. No one was allowed to be with me but my three attendants in the form of a cock, a hen, and a brindled cow. The spell was not to be broken until a girl came to us, whose heart was so good that she showed herself full of love, not only toward mankind, but toward animals--and that you have done, and by you, at midnight, we were set free, and the old house in the wood was changed back again into my royal palace.” And when they had arisen, the King’s Son ordered the three attendants to set out and fetch the father and mother of the girl to the marriage feast. “But where are my two sisters?” inquired the girl. “I have locked them in the cellar, and to-morrow they shall be led into the wood, and shall live as servants to a charcoal-burner, until they have grown kinder, and do not leave poor animals to suffer hunger.” [Illustration] MAID MALEEN There was once a King who had a son who asked in marriage the daughter of a mighty King. She was called Maid Maleen, and was very beautiful. As her father wished to give her to another, the Prince was rejected. But since they both loved each other with all their hearts, they would not give each other up, and Maid Maleen said to her father, “I can and will take no other for my husband.” Then the King flew into a passion, and ordered a dark tower to be built, into which no ray of sunlight or moonlight should enter. When it was finished, he said, “Therein shall you be imprisoned for seven years, and then I will come and see if your perverse spirit is broken.” Meat and drink for the seven years were carried into the tower; and then she and her waiting-woman were led into it and walled up, and thus cut off from the sky and from the earth. There they sat in the darkness, and knew not when day or night began. The King’s Son often went round and round the tower, and called their names, but no sound from without pierced through the thick walls. What else could they do but lament and complain?