And the eldest son said, "Is it not true, little mother, that the maiden belongs to me, who rescued her from that furious Dragon?" The second brother said, "But you would never have found her nor rescued her if I had not traced up the scent." The third brother interrupted, "Of what good would it have been that you, eldest brother, rescued her, and you, second brother, traced up the scent, if I had not destroyed the monster at the right moment? Therefore, in all right and reason, the maiden belongs to me." Here the fifth brother struck in. "By right the maiden belongs to me; for if I had not caught her up in the very nick of time she would not now be in the land of the living." And the fourth brother said, "If you will consider the whole matter impartially, you will see that I have the most righteous claim upon the maiden; for all your trouble would have gone for nothing if I had not made the castle at the right moment and hidden her, and you, too, to come within it." And now the Chamberlain put in his word. "All your pretensions are idle. The maiden is mine; for if I had not told you that she was stolen away, the first would not have rescued her, nor the second traced up the scent, nor the third destroyed the monster, nor the fifth caught up the maiden, and the fourth would have concealed no one in his castle." Thus all the six strove for possession of the maiden, until the Dragon-mother put in her word. "If this is so, then you are all in the right; but the maiden can surely not belong to you all. But you can all take her for your sister and love and protect her as long as you and she live." And so they did, and in remembrance thereof they and the maiden were set in the sky, and can be seen there to this day, and men call them "the Seven Stars." [2] At least, so goes the story. "Dragons are different from Reinecke and Petz and Isegrim," observed the little boy. "Don't you like them as well?" asked the grandmother. "I like them," answered the little boy, "but I don't know them as well as I know Reinecke and Isegrim. I am not used to them, grandmother." "You will get used to them while you are at your other grandmother's, where you are going to-morrow," said the grandmother. "The stories of her commune are not at all the same as the stories of this commune." "Why not, grandmother?" asked the little boy. "I don't know why not," answered the grandmother, "but it is always so. Every commune has its own stories. There are many dragons in those of your other grandmother's commune. Now you are going out into the world, you will get very wise, for you will know the stories of two communes." CHAPTER XIV MOTHER'S-MOTHER