The brothers had grown haughty with prosperity, and boasted of their good luck, and what was worse, they both boasted to each other of the favours of the princess in her own hearing! She ran to her father, flushed with shame and anger, and told him weeping what shameful lies she had [Pg 207] heard with her own ears, and begged him to punish the wretches. The king immediately ordered them both to be thrown into prison, and when they had confessed their guilt before the court next day, they were executed, while Slyboots was promoted to the rank of king's councillor. Some time afterwards the country was invaded by a foreign king, and Slyboots was sent against the enemy in the field. Then he drew the sword which he had brought from the under-world for the first time, and began to slaughter the hostile army, and soon none were left alive on the bloody field. The king was so pleased at the victory that he made Slyboots his son-in-law. Jannsen gives an inferior variant of this story under the title of the House-Spirit. Here a little man who creeps from under the stove is permitted by the cook to taste the soup three times running, and every time the pot is emptied. His master tells him to quit his service next morning, and orders the steward to make soup; and the steward knocks down the dwarf with the spoon. Next morning, as the cook is leaving, the dwarf invites him to his house under the stove, and gives him a little box, on which he has only to tap, and ask for whatever he wants. The steward meets the cook, hears the story, puts on soup, and invites the dwarf to partake. In return he receives a box, which he takes to his master, but out of the box jumps a dwarf with [Pg 208] an iron club, who belabours them both till they are nearly dead, and then disappears with the box. The kitchen dwarf was never seen again. The next story is peculiarly interesting and original. I place it here, because we find three maidens busy spinning for a witch, as the Kalevide found them in the palace of Sarvik. THE GOLD-SPINNERS. ( Kreutzwald .) I am going to tell you a beautiful story about what happened in the world in ancient days, when the meadows still resounded with the wise sayings of birds and beasts.