After another low reverence to the king, she turned to Mihal and made him aware, by a long speech, that she had been turned into a jackdaw for twenty years, because she had once presumed to say that gold was not so yellow as buttercups, or so bright as sunshine,--a statement altogether against the belief and laws of the dwarf; but now her punishment was over, and, knowing that she would never go back to the earth again, because she had lived there long enough to know better, and had learned that gold was the best of all things, she had resolved to bring little Mihal with her, (for she loved him almost as much as gold, and quite as well as silver, he was such a good boy), and persuade her master to grant him one wish before he left the cavern. The king readily consented to do this, but ordered that the boy and his friendly guide should take their places at the table and be served with supper first, for well he knew that a hungry child's first wish must be for food. The king had scarce given this order before a quick pair of hands stripped a tender sucking-pig from the spit, another filled a golden bowl with smoking stew from the caldron, another poured wine and ale into the clear goblets, and a fourth heaped porcelain dishes from every simmering pot and pipkin on the hearth; rolls of bread whiter than hoar-frost, and piles of purple and golden fruit followed, while the half-starved boy warmed his fingers at the blaze, and then ate and drank his fill of such viands as he had never before tasted, even in dreams. But when he could do no more good trencher-service, and the little old woman reminded him of the wish he was to ask the Dwarf-king to grant, he sat a long time pondering this important matter. Now, among the legends that his old grandmother had recounted was one that had made especial impression on his fancy,--an old Bohemian tradition of a red-winged goose, followed by six goslings, which traversed the forests and valleys in the dead of winter, uncaught and unhurt, for hundreds of years, though whoever was so skilful or so lucky as to catch the goose would after that succeed in all his undertakings. Mihal bethought himself, as he sat there, that perhaps the Dwarf-king was master of this wonderful bird, and could give him the prize at once, without delay or toil; so he slid from his seat at the table, and, approaching the king, made known his request.