es and hyenas were rushing from all
quarters through the pillar like stems of the fir-trees, to the place
where she stood calling them, without knowing it. The noise she made
herself, however, prevented her from hearing either their howls or the
soft pattering of their many trampling feet as they bounded over the
fallen fir needles and cones.

One huge old wolf had outsped the rest--not that he could run faster,
but that from experience he could more exactly judge whence the cries
came, and as he shot through the wood, she caught sight at last of his
lamping eyes coming swiftly nearer and nearer. Terror silenced her. She
stood with her mouth open, as if she were going to eat the wolf, but
she had no breath to scream with, and her tongue curled up in her mouth
like a withered and frozen leaf. She could do nothing but stare at the
coming monster. And now he was taking a few shorter bounds, measuring
the distance for the one final leap that should bring him upon her,
when out stepped the wise woman from behind the very tree by which she
had set the princess down, caught the wolf by the throat half-way in
his last spring, shook him once, and threw him from her dead. Then she
turned towards the princess, who flung herself into her arms, and was
instantly lapped in the folds of her cloak.

But now the huge army of wolves and hyenas had rushed like a sea around
them, whose waves leaped with hoarse roar and hollow yell up against
the wise woman. But she, like a strong stately vessel, moved unhurt
through the midst of them. Ever as they leaped against her cloak, they
dropped and slunk away back through the crowd. Others ever succeeded,
and ever in their turn fell, and drew back confounded. For some time
she walked on attended and assailed on all sides by the howling pack.
Suddenly they turned and swept away, vanishing in the depths of the
forest. She neither slackened nor hastened her step, but went walking
on as before.

In a little while she unfolded her cloak, and let the princess look
out. The firs had ceased; and they were on a lofty height of moorland,
stony and bare and dry, with tufts of heather and a few small plants
here and there. About the heath, on every side, lay the forest, looking
in the moonlight like a cloud; and above the forest, like the shaven
crown of a monk, rose the bare moor over which they were walking.
Presently, a little way in front of them, the princess espied a
whitewashed cottage, gleaming in t