The Star Princess burst into tears of joy. “You have saved me,” she cried. “What shall I do for you? My father is a king and he will give you whatever you ask. He will build a wall around an ocean for you if you wish and drive away from it every creature that would trouble you. He will--” and there she stopped, for, try her best, she could not think of anything else that would be at all likely to please a sculpin. The ugly little fish replied:-- “Star Princess, my rightful home is not in the sea, but on the land. I was born in a palace larger and more beautiful than that of your father. I fell into the hands of the wicked mermaid, and she threw over me the sculpin form that I now wear.” “My father has wizards and magicians at his court,” cried the Star Princess eagerly, “and surely some one among them can free you from the mermaid’s power.” “I am under a power that you alone can free me from,” declared the sculpin. “I am the sovereign of a kingdom larger and richer than your father’s. I am but a little older than yourself. They tell me I am handsome. You can free me if you will stroke my head three times and say--” “And say what?” cried the Star Princess. “And say, ‘I promise to marry you as soon as we have come to my father’s palace,’” the sculpin answered. “Oh, no, no,” cried the Star Princess. “I will do anything but that. I will give you everything I have, and when the kingdom is mine, you shall have that, too, and I will go out into the world and beg my bread, but I cannot marry any one except my own Prince.” “And are you so sure that he will care to take a portionless bride?” asked the sculpin. The maiden looked down upon the sand, then out upon the water, then she answered softly:-- “Even if he refused me, I could never marry any one else; but,” she added, “I am sure that he will want me.” “So am I,” said a manly voice behind her, and, behold, there stood the Prince himself, for the third gift of the troll was that no magic should have power to change his form against his will. He had kept the form of a sculpin for a while because he knew he could be of more service to the Princess in that shape. They sat down on the yellow sand, and he told her the long, long story of his love and his sorrow, of his remaining in her father’s kingdom that he might at least be near the place where he had first seen her, of his pacing up and down the shore and thinking of her, and at last of his springing from the cliff because he was sure that he heard her voice crying, “My Prince, save me, save me!” “But look about you, my Star Princess,” he said. “Do you not know this shore and this cliff towering over our heads? These waves beat upon the coast of your father’s kingdom. Come, let us go to the palace.”