was so overcome with her happiness, that
she fell on her knees. Presently the fruit became round and firm, and
she was glad and at peace; but when they were fully ripe she picked the
berries and ate eagerly of them, and then she grew sad and ill. A little
while later she called her husband, and said to him, weeping. 'If I
die, bury me under the juniper-tree.' Then she felt comforted and happy
again, and before another month had passed she had a little child, and
when she saw that it was as white as snow and as red as blood, her joy
was so great that she died.

Her husband buried her under the juniper-tree, and wept bitterly for
her. By degrees, however, his sorrow grew less, and although at times he
still grieved over his loss, he was able to go about as usual, and later
on he married again.

He now had a little daughter born to him; the child of his first wife
was a boy, who was as red as blood and as white as snow. The mother
loved her daughter very much, and when she looked at her and then looked
at the boy, it pierced her heart to think that he would always stand in
the way of her own child, and she was continually thinking how she could
get the whole of the property for her. This evil thought took possession
of her more and more, and made her behave very unkindly to the boy. She
drove him from place to place with cuffings and buffetings, so that the
poor child went about in fear, and had no peace from the time he left
school to the time he went back.

One day the little daughter came running to her mother in the
store-room, and said, 'Mother, give me an apple.' 'Yes, my child,' said
the wife, and she gave her a beautiful apple out of the chest; the chest
had a very heavy lid and a large iron lock.

'Mother,' said the little daughter again, 'may not brother have one
too?' The mother was angry at this, but she answered, 'Yes, when he
comes out of school.'

Just then she looked out of the window and saw him coming, and it seemed
as if an evil spirit entered into her, for she snatched the apple out
of her little daughter's hand, and said, 'You shall not have one before
your brother.' She threw the apple into the chest and shut it to. The
little boy now came in, and the evil spirit in the wife made her say
kindly to him, 'My son, will you have an apple?' but she gave him a
wicked look. 'Mother,' said the boy, 'how dreadful you look! Yes, give
me an apple.' The thought came to her that she would kill him. 'Come
wi