ary man, and she welcomed him graciously, and asked him what had
brought him to the city. In answer the prince told all his story, and
how he had travelled long and far in search of the Land of Immortality.

'You have found it,' said she, 'for I am queen over life and over death.
Here you can dwell among the immortals.'

A thousand years had passed since the prince first entered the city,
but they had flown so fast that the time seemed no more than six months.
There had not been one instant of the thousand years that the prince was
not happy till one night when he dreamed of his father and mother. Then
the longing for his home came upon him with a rush, and in the morning
he told the Queen of the Immortals that he must go and see his father
and mother once more. The queen stared at him with amazement, and cried:
'Why, prince, are you out of your senses? It is more than eight hundred
years since your father and mother died! There will not even be their
dust remaining.'

'I must go all the same,' said he.

'Well, do not be in a hurry,' continued the queen, understanding that
he would not be prevented. 'Wait till I make some preparations for your
journey.' So she unlocked her great treasure chest, and took out two
beautiful flasks, one of gold and one of silver, which she hung round
his neck. Then she showed him a little trap-door in one corner of the
room, and said: 'Fill the silver flask with this water, which is below
the trap-door. It is enchanted, and whoever you sprinkle with the water
will become a dead man at once, even if he had lived a thousand years.
The golden flask you must fill with the water here,' she added, pointing
to a well in another corner. 'It springs from the rock of eternity; you
have only to sprinkle a few drops on a body and it will come to life
again, if it had been a thousand years dead.'

The prince thanked the queen for her gifts, and, bidding her farewell,
went on his journey.

He soon arrived in the town where the mist-veiled queen reigned in her
palace, but the whole city had changed, and he could scarcely find his
way through the streets. In the palace itself all was still, and he
wandered through the rooms without meeting anyone to stop him. At
last he entered the queen's own chamber, and there she lay, with her
embroidery still in her hands, fast asleep. He pulled at her dress, but
she did not waken. Then a dreadful idea came over him, and he ran to
the chamber where the needles ha