"Oh--er--two lions couchant and one pard rampant upon a field of azure. He stood on the steps of the king's palace, blew his thingummyjig--I mean his trumpet, and shouted, 'Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! To all busybodies whom it may concern. Anyone bringing back the stolen princess to her sorrowing father, King Baldhead, will be given her hand in marriage and half her father's kingdom.' At that, there was great commotion everywhere. The three princes sent for the herald and asked him how the princess had been stolen. He told them that she had been carried off in the wink of an eye by a dreadful witch disguised as a whirlwind. The princess's father had consulted her fairy godmother and she said that he who wished to rescue the princess must follow his nose until he found her. "'That is an easy matter,' quoth the eldest prince. 'I will set out at once,' and he called for his finest horse and his ten body-servants and rode out in state, giving orders that no one else was to set forth on the quest. Because he was so handsome he was vain, and because he was vain he was selfish. "A year passed away and he did not return. Then the second prince set out in the same manner, for he also was vain and selfish, and at the end of a year he had not returned either. "Then the youngest prince, who was neither vain nor selfish, told his father that he too would try his luck. He, however, set out alone and on foot, for he said he thought he could follow his nose better thus. And when he had walked and walked without stopping for three days, the earth suddenly opened in front of him and out stepped the princess. She smiled radiantly upon him, and said, 'Dear prince, you have broken the witch's spell and set me free,' and they went back to her father hand in hand." "And what about the other two princes? What had happened to them?" "Oh, they were never heard of for seven years, and then the eldest one came riding along. He had followed his nose right round the world until he got back to the place from where he started. And exactly a year later, the other one turned up." "But I don't see," objected Erica in a drowsy voice, and opening one sleepy eye, "why the youngest prince found her and they didn't." "Oh well, you see, that's just where the point of the 'thorn' comes in. The two oldest princes had Grecian noses, but the youngest prince had a crooked one. Consequently he'd been going round and round in a circle, and when he'd gone round twelve times that broke the spell, you know, and the earth opened. Don't you remember the fairy rings?" "But how could the princess marry a prince with a crooked nose?" murmured Erica, with a last effort.