“That may be so, and that may not be so,” said the prince; “all the same, it was none of your doing. So now may I have the one who draws the water and builds the fire?” But the witch shook her head. “No,” said she, “there is still another task to do before that. Over yonder is a fir-tree; on the tree is a crow’s nest, and in the nest are three eggs. If you can harry that nest to-morrow between the rising and the setting of the sun, neither breaking nor leaving a single egg, you shall have that for which you ask.” Very well; that suited the prince. The next morning at the rising of the sun he started off to find the fir-tree, and there was no trouble in the finding I can tell you, for it was more than a hundred feet high, and as smooth as glass from root to tip. As for climbing it, he might as well have tried to climb a moonbeam, for in spite of all his trying he did nothing but slip and slip. By and by came the Swan Maiden as she had come before. [Illustration: The Swan Maiden helps y^e young Prince.] “Do you climb the fir-tree?” said she. “None too well,” said the king’s son. “Then I may help you in a hard task,” said she. She let down the braids of her golden hair, so that it hung down all about her and upon the ground, and then she began singing to the wind. She sang and sang, and by and by the wind began to blow, and, catching up the maiden’s hair, carried it to the top of the fir-tree, and there tied it to the branches. Then the prince climbed the hair and so reached the nest. There were the three eggs; he gathered them, and then he came down as he had gone up. After that the wind came again and loosed the maiden’s hair from the branches, and she bound it up as it was before. “Now, listen,” said she to the prince: “when the old witch asks you for the three crow’s eggs which you have gathered, tell her that they belong to the one who found them. She will not be able to take them from you, and they are worth something, I can tell you.” At sunset the old witch came hobbling along, and there sat the prince at the foot of the fir-tree. “Have you gathered the crow’s eggs?” said she. “Yes,” said the prince, “here they are in my handkerchief. And now may I have the one who draws the water and builds the fire?” “Yes,” said the old witch, “you may have her; only give me my crow’s eggs.” “No,” said the prince, “the crow’s eggs are none of yours, for they belong to him who gathered them.” When the old witch found that she was not to get her crow’s eggs in that way, she tried another, and began using words as sweet as honey. Come, come, there should be no hard feeling between them. The prince had served her faithfully, and before he went home with what he had come for he should have a good supper, for it is ill to travel on an empty stomach. So she brought the prince into the house, and then she left him while she went to put the pot on the fire, and to sharpen the bread-knife on the stone door-step.