In the morning, Wilhelm pushed on to the city, and he went straight to the palace gate and demanded to see the king. This was no easy matter, but finally he was admitted and the king asked him what he wanted. When the king heard that Wilhelm was determined to make an attempt to rescue the princess, he burst out crying and embracing the youth, assured him that it was folly for him--a simple country boy--to undertake to accomplish what so many accomplished and skilled princes had essayed in vain. But Wilhelm insisted, until at last the king called his court together and announced that the simple country lad had resolved to guess the riddles of the old witch. The courtiers straightway fell to laughing at the presumption of the rural wight, as they derisively called him, but it was much to the credit of the court ladies that they admired the youth for his comely person, ingenuous manners, and brave determination. The end of it all was that, at noon that very day, a long procession went with Wilhelm to the witch's castle, the courtiers hardly suppressing their mirth, but the ladies all in tears for fear the handsome youth would not guess the riddles and would therefore be transformed by the witch. The old witch saw the train approaching her castle and she went out into the yard and sat on a rickety bench under a upas tree to receive the king and his court. She was attended by twelve snapdragons, a score of hobgoblins, and innumerable gnomes, elves, ghouls, and hoodoos. On her left stood the catamaran, and on her right the boogaboo, each more revoltingly hideous than ever before. When the king and Wilhelm and the rest of the cavalcade came into the castle yard and stood before the witch, she grinned and showed her black gums and demanded to know why they had come. "We have a youth here who would solve your three riddles," said the king. Then the old witch laughed, "Ha, ha, ha!" and the gnomes, ghouls, and all the rest of the enchantress' followers took up the refrain and laughed till the air was very dense with sulphurous fumes. "Well, if the youth is resolved, let him see the doom that awaits him," said the witch, and she waved her stick. Forthwith a strange procession issued from the castle. First came two little imps, then came two black demons, and last of all the swans, two by two, mournfully flapping their wings and giving utterance to sighs and moans more dismal than any sounds ever before heard. "You are going to have a new companion, my pretty pets," said the old witch to the swans, whereupon the swans moaned and sighed with renewed vigor.