f, for his temper was
as short as chopped flax. "And don't come back again till you've found
her!" he bawled after the Prince as he went out to the door.

So the Prince went out into the wide world to find such a maiden as he
spoke of--whose brow was as white as milk, whose cheeks were as red as
blood, whose eyes were as blue as the skies, and whose hair was like
spun gold--and he would have to travel a long distance to find such a
one nowadays, would he not?

So off he went, tramp! tramp! tramp! till his shoes were dusty and his
clothes were gray. Nothing was in his wallet but a lump of brown bread
and a cold sausage, for he had gone out into the world in haste, as many
a one has done before and since his day.

So he went along, tramp! tramp! tramp! and by-and-by he came to a place
where three roads met, and there sat an old woman.

"Hui! hui! but I am hungry!" said the old woman.

Now the Prince was a good-hearted fellow, so he said to the old woman,
"It is little I have, but such as it is you are welcome to it."
Thereupon he gave the old woman the lump of brown bread and the cold
sausage that was in his wallet, and the old woman ate it up at a bite.

"Hui! hui! but I am cold!" said she.

"It is little that I have, but such as it is you are welcome to it,"
said the Prince, and he gave the old woman the dusty coat off his back.
After that he had nothing more to give her.

[Illustration: Ye King Prince John]

"One does not give something for nothing," said the old woman, so she
began fumbling about in her pocket until she found an old rusty key. And
the best part of the key was, that whenever one looked through the ring
of it, one saw everything just as it really was and not as it seemed to
be.

Who would not give his dinner and the coat off his back for such a key?

After that the Prince stepped out again, right foot foremost, tramp!
tramp! tramp! until evening had come, and he felt as hungry as one is
like to do when one goes without one's dinner. At last he came to a dark
forest, and to a gray castle that stood just in the middle of it. This
castle belonged to a great, ugly troll, though the Prince knew nothing
of that.

"Now I shall have something to eat," said he, and he opened the door of
the castle and went in.

Only one person was within, and that was a maiden; but she was as black
from head to foot as Fritz the charcoal burner. The Prince had never
seen the like of her in all of his life before,