“To the miller’s wedding; I am rather late already, for the wreath took such a long time to make, so I can’t stop.” “Don’t go,” said the boy earnestly; when once they have tasted your milk they will never let you leave them, and you will have to serve them all the days of your life.” “Oh, nonsense; what do you know about it?” answered the cow, who always thought she was wiser than other people. “Why, I can run twice as fast as any of them! I should like to see anybody try to keep me against my will.” And, without even a polite bow, she went on her way, feeling very much offended. But everything turned out just as the boy had said. The company had all heard of the fame of the cow’s milk, and persuaded her to give them some, and then her doom was sealed. A crowd gathered round her, and held her horns so that she could not use them, and, like the horse, she was shut in the stable, and only let out in the mornings, when a long rope was tied round her head, and she was fastened to a stake in a grassy meadow. And so it happened to the goat and to the sheep. Last of all came the reindeer, looking as he always did, as if some serious business was on hand. “Where are you going?” asked the boy, who by this time was tired of wild cherries, and was thinking of his dinner. “I am invited to the wedding,” answered the reindeer, “and the miller has begged me on no account to fail him.” “O fool!” cried the boy, “have you no sense at all? Don’t you know that when you get there they will hold you fast, for neither beast nor bird is as strong or as swift as you?” “That is exactly why I am quite safe,” replied the reindeer. “I am so strong that no one can bind me, and so swift that not even an arrow can catch me. So, goodbye for the present, you will soon see me back.” But none of the animals that went to the miller’s wedding ever came back. And because they were self-willed and conceited, and would not listen to good advice, they and their children have been the servants of men to this very day. [Lapplandische Mahrchen.] Fortune and the Wood-Cutter Several hundreds of years ago there lived in a forest a wood-cutter and his wife and children. He was very poor, having only his axe to depend upon, and two mules to carry the wood he cut to the neighbouring town; but he worked hard, and was always out of bed by five o’clock, summer and winter. This went on for twenty years, and though his sons were now grown up, and went with their father to the forest, everything seemed to go against them, and they remained as poor as ever. In the end the wood-cutter lost heart, and said to himself: “What is the good of working like this if I never am a penny the richer at the end? I shall go to the forest no more! And perhaps, if I take to my bed, and do not run after Fortune, one day she may come to me.” So the next morning he did not get up, and when six o’clock struck, his wife, who had been cleaning the house, went to see what was the matter.