annot bear that you should suffer the same fate
as the others. Behold that nut-tree over there! What seem to be white
gourds hanging on its naked branches are their skulls! Go your way
quickly, for the evil spirit that keeps me prisoner, and will not release
me until I have sworn an oath to become his wife, will soon return. His
name is Misdral, he is very fierce and mighty, and lives among the waste
rocks over there on the north shore of the lake. You have my thanks for
your good intention, and now proceed on your journey." The knight,
however, did not follow her advice, but approached the beautiful woman
without more words, and caught hold of her hair to unbind it from the
ring. No sooner had he touched the emeralds than two brown snakes came
hissing towards him.

"Oho!" exclaimed Sir Wendelin. With one hand he caught their two necks
together in his powerful grip, with the other he grasped their tails,
tore them in two, and threw them out onto the cliffs above the lake.

When the imprisoned lady saw this, she heaved a deep sigh of relief and
spoke: "Now I believe that you will be able to liberate me. Draw this
ring from my finger!"

The knight obeyed and as he touched the lady's fingers, which were
slender and pointed, he felt his heart warm within him, and he would
gladly have kissed her. But he only withdrew the ring. As he forced it
onto the end of his own little finger the lady said to him: "Whenever you
turn it round you will be changed to a falcon; for you must know. . . .
But woe to us! There, where the water is lashed into foam, is the monster
swimming towards us!"

She had hardly finished before a hideous creature drew itself out of the
lake. It looked as if it were covered with mouldering pumice-stone. Two
toads peeped from the cavities of the eyes, brown eel-grass hung dripping
and disordered over its neck and forehead, and in place of teeth there
were long iron spikes in its jaws which protruded and crossed one another
over its lips.

"A fine wooer, indeed!" thought the squire. "If the stone-clad fellow
should not possess a vulnerable spot somewhere on his body I shall
certainly lose my position!"

Similar thoughts passed through the knight's mind, and consequently he
did not attack it with his sword, but lifting a huge piece of granite
from the ground he hurled it at the monster's head. The creature only
sneezed, and passed its hand over its eyes as if to brush away a fly.
Then it looked round and,