ighness's grandsire, who, you will have heard, rather encouraged
these sort of people than otherwise, and whom no power can force to flee
the country, for as soon as the king's guards approach the castle he
enchants them into rocks and fir trees."

"Oh, oh! we will see about that," said the Princess Bertha. "So this man
is a dangerous character. I do not intend to allow any dangerous person
when I am queen. Come, we must subdue this man."

"But----" remonstrated Hans.

"But me no buts, Sir Shaveling," quoth the princess, "but do my bidding.
Must I lend thee courage as well as wit? Onward, I say."

Hans could ill brook being called a coward, and that, too, by a
woman--such a little woman, too--so, crossing himself, he put spurs to
his horse and ascended the hill till he arrived at the gate of the
castle.

"What do _you_ want?" said the wizard, suddenly making his appearance at
the window.

"Say," said the princess in the ear of her husband, "that you have come
in the name of the Princess Bertha, our future queen, to bid him flee
the country."

Hans cried out in a loud voice as he was instructed by his spouse. The
wizard answered with a loud laugh, and descended the staircase.

Now, the princess knew that evil charms availed not against good ones,
so, touching her husband with her wand, she thus made him proof against
any magic power of the wizard.

"Wait a bit," said the magician, descending; "you will be no harder task
to manage than the rest have been, I'll warrant," and he proceeded to
draw a circle on the ground and to mumble a spell.

"Enough of this mummery," said Hans, at the instigation of the princess.
"Prepare to leave the country at once, or you die."

"These words to _me_, you churl!" cried the wizard, pale with rage.
"Dost know who I am?"

"I know, and I defy you--both your arms and your spells."

Then the wizard, mortified at finding that his charm failed upon Hans,
entered his castle in great wrath, put on his armour, and came forth
mounted on a black charger with fiery eyes, and ran at Hans furiously
with his lance, but the lance was shivered into splinters against the
magical armour of Hans.

The wizard then seized his two-handed sword, and Hans seizing his, a
terrific combat ensued. At length Hans smote off the wizard's head at a
blow, and the bleeding carcase dropped from the saddle. At the death of
the wizard his fiery charger was instantly changed into a fir tree, and
his castle int