hem
some, and then her doom was sealed. A crowd gathered round her, and held
her horns so that she could not use them, and, like the horse, she was
shut in the stable, and only let out in the mornings, when a long rope
was tied round her head, and she was fastened to a stake in a grassy
meadow.

And so it happened to the goat and to the sheep.

Last of all came the reindeer, looking as he always did, as if some
serious business was on hand.

'Where are you going?' asked the boy, who by this time was tired of wild
cherries, and was thinking of his dinner.

'I am invited to the wedding,' answered the reindeer, 'and the miller
has begged me on no account to fail him.'

'O fool!' cried the boy, 'have you no sense at all? Don't you know that
when you get there they will hold you fast, for neither beast nor bird
is as strong or as swift as you?'

'That is exactly why I am quite safe,' replied the reindeer. 'I am so
strong that no one can bind me, and so swift that not even an arrow can
catch me. So, goodbye for the present, you will soon see me back.'

But none of the animals that went to the miller's wedding ever came
back. And because they were self-willed and conceited, and would not
listen to good advice, they and their children have been the servants of
men to this very day.

[Lapplandische Mahrchen.]

Fortune and the Wood-Cutter

Several hundreds of years ago there lived in a forest a wood-cutter and
his wife and children. He was very poor, having only his axe to depend
upon, and two mules to carry the wood he cut to the neighbouring town;
but he worked hard, and was always out of bed by five o'clock, summer
and winter.

This went on for twenty years, and though his sons were now grown
up, and went with their father to the forest, everything seemed to
go against them, and they remained as poor as ever. In the end the
wood-cutter lost heart, and said to himself:

'What is the good of working like this if I never am a penny the richer
at the end? I shall go to the forest no more! And perhaps, if I take to
my bed, and do not run after Fortune, one day she may come to me.'

So the next morning he did not get up, and when six o'clock struck, his
wife, who had been cleaning the house, went to see what was the matter.

'Are you ill?' she asked wonderingly, surprised at not finding him
dressed. 'The cock has crowed ever so often. It is high time for you to
get up.'

'Why should I get up?' asked the