“‘Hem,’ said the magpie, shaking her head, ‘to think that one can be so forgetful. To be sure in the adjoining beechen-bower slumbers the fair Princess Doralice, about whom wicked King Spider has spun his web. Oh, if you could save her, learned sir!’ The student’s heart was stirred, and he asked the magpie where the bower was. The bird flew before him, from bough to bough, to show him the way, till at last they came to a quiet meadow, enclosed all round, through which a streamlet, taking its source from a cleft in the rocks, was flowing among some pretty bowers formed by beech-trees. These trees had struck their branches into the earth, and thus arched over the ground like a roof, through which the fine leaves of the fern were peering forth, forming as it were the gables and loopholes of the little leafy dwelling. Upon these the magpie sprang, peeped through a loophole, and whispered mysteriously, ‘Here sleeps the princess!” The student approached with beating heart, knelt before the opening of the bower and looked within. Ah, there was a sight that set his whole soul and senses into a commotion more violent than when he uttered the magical word! On the moss, which rose like a pillow round its fair burden, the loveliest maiden was lying asleep. Her head was somewhat raised, one arm was placed under it, and her white fingers glistened through the gold-brown hair, which in long soft streams delicately wound about her neck and bosom. With unspeakable delight and, at the same time, with a feeling of melancholy the student gazed upon the noble face, the purple lips, the full white limbs, which cast a bright reflection on the dark moss. The circumstance that the sleeper, as if oppressed by some mysterious weight, appeared to breathe in a soft agony, only rendered her more charming in his eyes; he felt that his heart was captivated for ever, and that those lips alone could still his passion. ‘Is it not a shame,’ said the magpie, as she hopped through the hole into the bower and perched on the sleeper’s arm, ‘that so lovely a princess should thus be bound by a web?’ ‘A web?’ asked the student; ‘she is indeed lying there wrapped in her white veil.’ ‘Oh, folly!’ cried the magpie, ‘I tell you that is all cobweb, and King Spider made it.’ ‘But who is King Spider?’