“He did not find his father in the cottage, and it was not without some fear and anxiety that he laid the wolf on his own bed, which was made of moss and rushes, and over which he had painted a figure of St George and the dragon. He then turned to the fire-place of the small hut, in order to prepare a healing salve for the wounds; but, when thus occupied, how was he surprised to hear the moanings and lamentations of an articulate voice from the bed on which he had just before deposited the wolf! On returning thither, his astonishment was inexpressible on perceiving, instead of the frightful wild beast, a most beautiful damsel, on whose head the wound which he had inflicted was bleeding through her fine golden hair, and whose right arm, in all its grace and snow-white luxuriance, was stretched out motionless, for it had been broken by the blow from his axe! “Pray,” said she, “have pity, and do not kill me outright. The little life that I have still left is indeed painful enough, and may not last long,--yet sad as my condition is, it is yet tenfold better than to die!”--The young man then knelt down weeping beside her, and she explained to him how she was the daughter of a magician on the other side of the mountain, who had sent her out in the shape of a wolf to collect plants from places which, in her own proper form, she could not have reached. It was but in terror that she had made that violent spring, which the youth had mistaken for an attack on him, when her only wish had been to pass him by. “But you directly broke my right arm,” said she, “though I had no evil design against you!” How she had now regained her proper shape she could not imagine; but to the youth it was quite clear, that the picture of St George and the dragon had broken the spell by which the poor girl had been transformed. “While the son was thus occupied, the old man returned home, and soon learned all that had occurred, perceiving, at the same time, that if the young pagan wanderer had been released from the spells by which she had been bound, the youth was in his turn enchanted, and spell-bound by her beauty and amiable behaviour. “From that moment he exerted himself to the utmost, for the welfare of her soul, endeavouring to convert her to Christianity, while his son attended to the cure of her wounds; and, as their endeavours were on both sides successful, it was resolved among them, that the lovers should be united in holy bonds of matrimony, for the youth had not yet restricted himself by any monastic vows.