At last came the Blockhead's turn; he searched in the moss, but the pearls were hard to find, and he got on but slowly. Then he sat down on a rock and cried, and as he was sitting there, the Ant-King, whose life he had saved, came up with five thousand ants, and it was not long before the little creatures had found all the pearls and laid them in a heap. Now the second task was to get the key of the Princesses' room out of the lake. When the Blockhead came to the lake, the ducks he had once saved, swam up, dived, and brought up the key from the depths. But the third task was the hardest. The Prince had to find out which was the youngest and most charming of the Princesses while they were asleep. They were exactly alike, and could not be distinguished in any way, except that before going to sleep each had eaten a different kind of sweet. The eldest a piece of sugar, the second a little syrup, and the third a spoonful of honey. Then the Queen of the Bees, whom the Blockhead had saved from burning, came and tried the lips of all three. Finally, she settled on the mouth of the one who had eaten the honey, and so the Prince recognised the right one. Then the charm was broken and everything in the castle was set free, and those who had been turned to stone took human form again. And the Blockhead married the youngest and sweetest Princess, and became King after her father's death, while his two Brothers married the other sisters. [Illustration: The Three Sleeping Princesses.] [Illustration: {The Ducks, which he had once saved, dived and brought up the key from the depths.}] The Elves and the Shoemaker There was once a Shoemaker who, through no fault of his own, had become so poor that at last he had only leather enough left for one pair of shoes. At evening he cut out the shoes which he intended to begin upon the next morning, and since he had a good conscience, he lay down quietly, said his prayers, and fell asleep. In the morning when he had said his prayers, and was preparing to sit down to work, he found the pair of shoes standing finished on his table. He was amazed, and could not understand it in the least. He took the shoes in his hand to examine them more closely. They were so neatly sewn that not a stitch was out of place, and were as good as the work of a master-hand. Soon after a purchaser came in, and as he was much pleased with the shoes, he paid more than the ordinary price for them, so that the Shoemaker was able to buy leather for two pairs of shoes with the money. He cut them out in the evening, and next day, with fresh courage, was about to go to work; but he had no need to, for when he got up, the shoes were finished, and buyers were not lacking. These gave him so much money that he was able to buy leather for four pairs of shoes.