(M93) A Lithuanian story relates how a prince married a princess and got with her a kingdom to boot. She gave him the keys of the castle and told him he might enter every chamber except one small room, of which the key had a bit of twine tied to it. But one day, having nothing to do, he amused himself by rummaging in all the rooms of the castle, and amongst the rest he went into the little forbidden chamber. In it he found twelve heads and a man hanging on the hook of the door. The man said to the prince, “Oblige me by fetching me a glass of beer.” The prince fetched it and the man drank it. Then the man said to the prince, “Oblige me by releasing me from the hook.” The prince released him. Now the man was a king without a soul, and he at once availed himself of his liberty to come to an understanding with the coachman of the castle, and between them they put the prince’s wife in the coach and drove off with her. The prince rode after them and coming up with the coach called out, “Halt, Soulless King! Step out and fight!” The King stepped out and the fight began. In a trice the King had sliced the buttons off the prince’s coat and pinked him in the side. Then he stepped into the coach and drove off. The prince rode after him again, and when he came up with the coach he called out, “Halt, Soulless King! Step out and fight!” The King stepped out and they fought again, and again the King sliced off the prince’s buttons and pinked him in the side. Then, after carefully wiping and sheathing his sword, he said to his discomfited adversary, “Now look here. I let you off the first time for the sake of the glass of beer you gave me, and I let you off the second time because you let me down from that infernal hook; but if you fight me a third time, by Gad I’ll make mince meat of you.” Then he stepped into the coach, told the coachman to drive on, jerked up the coach window with a bang, and drove away like anything. But the prince galloped after him and coming up with the coach for the third time he called out, “Halt, Soulless King! Step out and fight!” The King did step out, and at it the two of them went, tooth and nail. But the prince had no chance. Before he knew where he was, the King ran him through the body, whisked off his head, and left him lying a heap of raw mince beside the road. His wife, or rather his widow, said to the King, “Let me gather up the fragments that remain.” The King said, “Certainly.” So she made up the mince into a neat parcel, deposited it on the front seat of the coach, and away they drove to the King’s castle. Well to cut a long story short, a brother-in-law of the deceased prince sent a hawk to fetch the water of life; the hawk brought it in his beak; the brother-in-law poured the water on the fragments of the prince, and the prince came to life again at once safe and sound. Then he went to the King’s castle and played on a little pipe, and his wife heard it in the castle and said, “That is how my