unting the wild beasts in his forests. One
day he followed a stag so far and so long that he lost his way. Alone
and overtaken by night, he was glad to find himself near a small
thatched cottage in which lived a charcoal-burner.

"Will you kindly show me the way to the high-road? You shall be
handsomely rewarded."

"I would willingly," said the charcoal-burner, "but God is going to
send my wife a little child, and I cannot leave her alone. Will you
pass the night under our roof? There is a truss of sweet hay in the
loft where you may rest, and to-morrow morning I will be your guide."

The king accepted the invitation and went to bed in the loft. Shortly
after a son was born to the charcoal-burner's wife. But the king could
not sleep. At midnight he heard noises in the house, and looking
through a crack in the flooring he saw the charcoal-burner asleep, his
wife almost in a faint, and by the side of the newly-born babe three
old women dressed in white, each holding a lighted taper in her hand,
and all talking together. Now these were the three Soudiche or Fates,
you must know.

The first said, "On this boy I bestow the gift of confronting great
dangers."

The second said, "I bestow the power of happily escaping all these
dangers, and of living to a good old age."

The third said, "I bestow upon him for wife the princess born at the
selfsame hour as he, and daughter of the very king sleeping above in
the loft."

At these words the lights went out and silence reigned around.

Now the king was greatly troubled, and wondered exceedingly; he felt
as if he had received a sword-thrust in the chest. He lay awake all
night thinking how to prevent the words of the Fates from coming true.

With the first glimmer of morning light the baby began to cry. The
charcoal-burner, on going over to it, found that his wife was dead.

"Poor little orphan," he said sadly, "what will become of thee without
a mother's care?"

"Confide this child to me," said the king, "I will look after it. He
shall be well provided for. You shall be given a sum of money large
enough to keep you without having to burn charcoal."

The poor man gladly agreed, and the king went away promising to send
some one for the child. The queen and courtiers thought it would be an
agreeable surprise for the king to hear that a charming little
princess had been born on the night he was away. But instead of being
pleased he frowned, and calling one of his servants