astle and awaited the old witch's arrival.
At last as it was beginning to grow dark she appeared. She swooped down
upon a big apple-tree, and after shaking some golden apples from it, she
pounced down upon the earth. As soon as her feet touched the ground she
became transformed from a hawk into a woman. This was the moment the
youth was waiting for, and he swung his mighty sword in the air with all
his strength and the witch's head fell off, and her blood spurted up on
the walls.

Without fear of any further danger, he packed up all the treasures of
the castle into great chests, and gave his brothers a signal to pull
them up out of the abyss. First the treasures were attached to the rope
and then the three lovely girls. And now everything was up above and
only he himself remained below. But as he was a little suspicious of his
brothers, he fastened a heavy stone on to the rope and let them pull it
up. At first they heaved with a will, but when the stone was half way
up they let it drop suddenly, and it fell to the bottom broken into a
hundred pieces.

'So that's what would have happened to my bones had I trusted myself to
them,' said the youth sadly; and he began to cry bitterly, not because
of the treasures, but because of the lovely girl with her swanlike neck
and golden hair.

For a long time he wandered sadly all through the beautiful underworld,
and one day he met a magician who asked him the cause of his tears. The
youth told him all that had befallen him, and the magician said:

'Do not grieve, young man! If you will guard the children who are hidden
in the golden apple-tree, I will bring you at once up to the earth.
Another magician who lives in this land always eats my children up. It
is in vain that I have hidden them under the earth and locked them into
the castle. Now I have hidden them in the apple-tree; hide yourself
there too, and at midnight you will see my enemy.'

The youth climbed up the tree, and picked some of the beautiful golden
apples, which he ate for his supper.

At midnight the wind began to rise, and a rustling sound was heard at
the foot of the tree. The youth looked down and beheld a long thick
serpent beginning to crawl up the tree. It wound itself round the stem
and gradually got higher and higher. It stretched its huge head, in
which the eyes glittered fiercely, among the branches, searching for the
nest in which the little children lay. They trembled with terror when
they saw the