ted, and manufactured into honey and wax. They flew
in and out. The queen-bee wanted to fly out, but then all the other
bees must have gone with her. It was not yet the time for that, but
still she wanted to fly out; so the others bit off her majesty's
wings, and she had to stay where she was.

"Now get upon the earth bank," said the wise woman. "Come and look
out over the highway, where you can see the people."

"What a crowd it is!" said the young man. "One story after
another. It whirls and whirls! It's quite a confusion before my
eyes. I shall go out at the back."

"No, go straight forward," said the woman. "Go straight into the
crowd of people; look at them in the right way. Have an ear to hear
and the right heart to feel, and you will soon invent something.
But, before you go away, you must give me my spectacles and my
ear-trumpet again."

And so saying, she took both from him.

"Now I do not see the smallest thing," said the young man, "and
now I don't hear anything more."

"Why, then, you can't be a poet by Easter," said the wise woman.

"But, by what time can I be one?" asked he.

"Neither by Easter nor by Whitsuntide! You will not learn how to
invent anything."

"What must I do to earn my bread by poetry?"

"You can do that before Shrove Tuesday. Hunt the poets! Kill their
writings and thus you will kill them. Don't be put out of countenance.
Strike at them boldly, and you'll have carnival cake, on which you can
support yourself and your wife too."

"What one can invent!" cried the young man. And so he hit out
boldly at every second poet, because he could not be a poet himself.

We have it from the wise woman. She knows WHAT ONE CAN INVENT.

THE WICKED PRINCE

There lived once upon a time a wicked prince whose heart and
mind were set upon conquering all the countries of the world, and on
frightening the people; he devastated their countries with fire and
sword, and his soldiers trod down the crops in the fields and
destroyed the peasants' huts by fire, so that the flames licked the
green leaves off the branches, and the fruit hung dried up on the
singed black trees. Many a poor mother fled, her naked baby in her
arms, behind the still smoking walls of her cottage; but also there
the soldiers followed her, and when they found her, she served as
new nourishment to their diabolical enjoyments; demons could not
possibly have done worse things than these soldiers! The prince was of
opinion