t last the King had to
get a nurse for him--one of the maids of the Court. As soon as the child
got into her charge he stopped crying, and behaved well as before.

After the sea-voyage it seemed to the King that the Queen had altered
very much in many ways, and not for the better. He thought her much more
haughty and stubborn and difficult to deal with than she used to be.
Before long others began to notice this as well as the King. In the
Court there were two young fellows, one of eighteen years old, the other
of nineteen, who were very fond of playing chess, and often sat long
inside playing at it. Their room was next the Queen's, and often during
the day they heard the Queen talking.

One day they paid more attention than usual when they heard her talk,
and put their ears close to a crack in the wall between the rooms, and
heard the Queen say quite plainly, 'When I yawn a little, then I am a
nice little maiden; when I yawn half-way, then I am half a troll; and
when I yawn fully, then I am a troll altogether.'

As she said this she yawned tremendously, and in a moment had put on
the appearance of a fearfully ugly troll. Then there came up through the
floor of the room a three-headed Giant with a trough full of meat, who
saluted her as his sister and set down the trough before her. She began
to eat out of it, and never stopped till she had finished it. The young
fellows saw all this going on, but did not hear the two of them say
anything to each other. They were astonished though at how greedily the
Queen devoured the meat, and how much she ate of it, and were no longer
surprised that she took so little when she sat at table with the King.
As soon as she had finished it the Giant disappeared with the trough by
the same way as he had come, and the Queen returned to her human shape.

Now we must go back to the King's son after he had been put in charge of
the nurse. One evening, after she had lit a candle and was holding the
child, several planks sprang up in the floor of the room, and out at the
opening came a beautiful woman dressed in white, with an iron belt round
her waist, to which was fastened an iron chain that went down into the
ground. The woman came up to the nurse, took the child from her,
and pressed it to her breast; then she gave it back to the nurse and
returned by the same way as she had come, and the floor closed over her
again. Although the woman had not spoken a single word to her, the nurse
was ve