gh I have passed through it
hundreds of times in vain, I have never given up hope. To-day I was
going in search of a large eagle that I had shot, and instead of the
eagle I have found--you.' Then he took Elsa on his horse, and rode with
her to the town, where the old king received her graciously.

A few days later the wedding took place, and as Elsa was arranging the
veil upon her hair fifty carts arrived laden with beautiful things which
the lady of the Tontlawald had sent to Elsa. And after the king's death
Elsa became queen, and when she was old she told this story. But that
was the last that was ever heard of the Tontlawald.

(From Ehstnische Marchen.)

THE FINEST LIAR IN THE WORLD

At the edge of a wood there lived an old man who had only one son, and
one day he called the boy to him and said he wanted some corn ground,
but the youth must be sure never to enter any mill where the miller was
beardless.

The boy took the corn and set out, and before he had gone very far he
saw a large mill in front of him, with a beardless man standing in the
doorway.

'Good greeting, beardless one!' cried he.

'Good greeting, sonny,' replied the man.

'Could I grind something here?'

'Yes, certainly! I will finish what I am doing and then you can grind as
long as you like.'

But suddenly the boy remembered what his father had told him, and bade
farewell to the man, and went further down the river, till he came
to another mill, not knowing that as soon as his back was turned the
beardless man had picked up a bag of corn and run hastily to the same
mill before him. When the boy reached the second mill, and saw a second
beardless man sitting there, he did not stop, and walked on till he
came to a third mill. But this time also the beardless man had been too
clever for him, and had arrived first by another road. When it happened
a fourth time the boy grew cross, and said to himself, 'It is no good
going on; there seems to be a beardless man in every mill'; and he took
his sack from his back, and made up his mind to grind his corn where he
was.

The beardless man finished grinding his own corn, and when he had done
he said to the boy, who was beginning to grind his, 'Suppose, sonny, we
make a cake of what you have there.'

Now the boy had been rather uneasy when he recollected his father's
words, but he thought to himself, 'What is done cannot be undone,' and
answered, 'Very well, so let it be.'

Then the beardles