his back, left the wagon
standing, and started home on foot.

Now, at home the farmer's wife was very impatient for him to come, for
she wanted to talk over with him what her two wishes should be, and at
last she exclaimed: "Oh, I wish that he would hurry!"

No sooner were the words spoken than the farmer shot through the air and
into the house, angry at having been brought so speedily, and at his
wife for having so foolishly wasted a wish. So immediately they began to
quarrel about it, and the farmer said that it was all her fault for
making him lie about the number of horns on the ox.

"Plague take the woman!" he exclaimed, "I wish that two of the horns
were growing out of her head this minute!"

No sooner were the words spoken than the woman threw her hands to her
head and cried aloud in pain, for two horns were growing rapidly, one on
each side of her head, and soon they were pushing through her hair and
shoving her cap aside.

But the farmer clapped his hand to his mouth exclaiming: "Oh, that was
my last wish. Do you now quickly wish for a million dollars!"

"Much good a million dollars would do me!" said his wife, "with horns on
my head like an ox!"

"But you could buy bonnets of silk and of velvet and cover them up,"
pleaded her husband, who saw his last hope of riches disappearing, as,
indeed, it did, for he had hardly stopped speaking when his wife
exclaimed: "I wish that the horns were gone off of my head."

And in a moment the horns were gone, and so was the last wish, and so
was the hope for great riches, and so, also, were the two fine horses!

KING GRISLY-BEARD

RETOLD FROM THE BROTHERS GRIMM

Once there was a great King who had a daughter that was very beautiful,
but so haughty and vain she thought none of the Princes who came to ask
her in marriage were good enough for her, and she made sport of them.

One day the King, her father, held a great feast, and invited all the
Princes at once. They sat in a row, according to their rank--Kings and
Princes and Dukes and Earls. Then the Princess came in, and passed down
the line by them all; but she had something disagreeable to say to
every one. The first was too fat. "He's as round as a tub!" she said.
The next one was too tall. "What a flag-pole!" she declared. The next
was too short. "What a dumpling!" was her comment. The fourth was too
pale, and so she called him "Wall-face." The fifth was too red, and was
named "Coxcomb."

Thus she