All the kings and princes tried in vain to solve it. Then the princess
said, "Come out and show yourself, my beloved!"

The soldier took off his invisible cap, took the white hands of the
princess, and kissed her sweet lips.

"Here is the key to my riddle," said the fair princess. "The casket is
myself, and the golden key is my faithful husband."

All the wooers had to go home with nothing, and the princess and the
soldier lived happily ever after.

"IT IS QUITE TRUE!"

"That is a terrible story!" said a Hen in a quarter of the town where the
affair had not happened. "That is a terrible story from a poultry-yard. I
dare not sleep alone to-night! It is quite fortunate that there are so many
of us on the roost together!" And she told a tale, which made the feathers
of the other hens stand on end, and the cock's comb fall down flat. It is
quite true!

But we will begin at the beginning; and that took place in a poultry-yard
in another part of the town. The sun went down, and the fowls jumped up on
their perch to roost. There was a Hen, with white feathers and short legs,
who laid eggs regularly and was a respectable hen in every way; as she flew
up on to the roost she pecked herself with her beak, and a little feather
fell from her.

"There it goes!" said she; "the more I peck myself the handsomer I grow!"
And she said it quite merrily, for she was a joker among the hens, though,
as I have said, she was very respectable; and then she went to sleep.

It was dark all around; the hens sat side by side on the roost, but the one
that sat next to the merry Hen did not sleep: she heard and she didn't
hear, as one should do in this world if one wishes to live in peace; but
she could not help telling it to her neighbor.

"Did you hear what was said here just now? I name no names; but here is a
hen who wants to peck her feathers out to look well. If I were a cock I
should despise her."

And just above the hens sat the Owl, with her husband and her children; the
family had sharp ears, and they all heard every word that the neighboring
Hen had spoken. They rolled their eyes, and the Mother-Owl clapped her
wings and said, "Don't listen to it! But I suppose you heard what was said
there? I heard it with my own ears, and one must hear much before one's
ears fall off. There is one among the fowls who has so completely forgotten
what is becoming conduct in a hen that she pulls out all her feathers,
while the cock sits l