He went to the grand house over the way and called his brothers, but they only came to the windows and laughed and jeered at him. “No, no,” said they, “we are going no farther along the road, for we know very well when the world is smooth with us. The Fruit of Happiness can bring us nothing better than what we have at hand.” And so the young prince had to trudge away by himself. But what to do with the straw and the egg he knew no more than my grandmother’s cat. So he opened his little book, and this was what it said between the leaves: “_Mount the straw and ride it whither it takes you._” “So,” said the prince; “that would be a strange thing to do for sure and certain. All the same, an easy task is worth the trying;” so he just flung his leg over the straw and—whisk! pop!—there he was, astride of a great splendid horse with smooth hair as yellow as gold. That straw was a straw worth having! And the best part of the matter was that the prince had no need to draw the bridle-rein either to the right or to the left; for the yellow horse took the bit in his teeth and away he pounded so that the ground smoked under his hoofs, and the wind whistled back of the prince’s ears. By and by they came to a great sandy desert place where not a twig or a leaf was to be seen, but only white bones scattered here and there, for the prince was not the first by many who had tried to cross that desert to the Tree of Happiness. [Illustration: The Prince finds y^e three giants sleeping under the tree of life & snoring away like everything. ¶] But he had better luck than the others, for the yellow horse carried him along like the wind, and on and on until at last he came within sight of the Tree of Happiness. There sat three terrible giants, an old giant and his two sons, and alongside of each lay a great iron club with sharp spikes in the end of it. But all three sat with their eyes shut, sleeping away as though they would never awaken. And that was a good thing for the prince, for he had never seen such terrible, wicked-looking creatures as the old giant and his two sons. He leaped from off the back of the yellow horse, and there it was, nothing but a barley straw. He put it in his pocket and took out his Book of Knowledge and opened it. This was what it said: “_Fear not the giants, for they will not awake; but touch neither the golden fruit nor the silver fruit, for they are not for you._” When the prince read what the Book of Knowledge said, he knew that it was so. Up he marched to the Tree of Happiness as bold as bold could be, and the giants snored away so that the leaves shook. There hung three apples; the first was of gleaming gold, the second was of shining silver, and the third was just a poor, weazened, shrivelled thing, that looked as though there were not three drops of juice in it.