n his power. Proudly he stood, and
neither the heat of the sun nor the force of the rain could move him.
'This is better than all!' he said to himself. But one day he heard a
strange noise at his feet, and when he looked down to see what it could
be, he saw a stone-cutter driving tools into his surface. Even while he
looked a trembling feeling ran all through him, and a great block broke
off and fell upon the ground. Then he cried in his wrath: 'Is a mere
child of earth mightier than a rock? Oh, if I were only a man!'

And the mountain spirit answered: 'Your wish is heard. A man once more
you shall be!'

And a man he was, and in the sweat of his brow he toiled again at his
trade of stone-cutting. His bed was hard and his food scanty, but he
had learned to be satisfied with it, and did not long to be something
or somebody else. And as he never asked for things he had not got, or
desired to be greater and mightier than other people, he was happy at
last, and heard the voice of the mountain spirit no longer.

[From Japanische Mahrchen.]

The Gold-Bearded Man

Once upon a time there lived a great king who had a wife and one son
whom he loved very much. The boy was still young when, one day, the king
said to his wife: 'I feel that the hour of my death draws near, and I
want you to promise that you will never take another husband but will
give up your life to the care of our son.'

The queen burst into tears at these words, and sobbed out that she would
never, never marry again, and that her son's welfare should be her first
thought as long as she lived. Her promise comforted the troubled heart
of the king, and a few days after he died, at peace with himself and
with the world.

But no sooner was the breath out of his body, than the queen said to
herself, 'To promise is one thing, and to keep is quite another.' And
hardly was the last spadeful of earth flung over the coffin than she
married a noble from a neighbouring country, and got him made king
instead of the young prince. Her new husband was a cruel, wicked man,
who treated his stepson very badly, and gave him scarcely anything to
eat, and only rags to wear; and he would certainly have killed the boy
but for fear of the people.

Now by the palace grounds there ran a brook, but instead of being a
water-brook it was a milk-brook, and both rich and poor flocked to it
daily and drew as much milk as they chose. The first thing the new king
did when he was seat