body was being placed in the
ground the other woman's husband came running up, dressed, as far as
anyone could see, in no clothes at all. Everybody burst into shouts of
laughter at the sight of him, and the men laid down the coffin and
laughed too, till their sides nearly split. The dead man was so
astonished at this behaviour, that he peeped out of a little window in
the side of the coffin, and cried out:

'I should laugh as loudly as any of you, if I were not a dead man.'

When they heard the voice coming from the coffin the other people
suddenly stopped laughing, and stood as if they had been turned into
stone. Then they rushed with one accord to the coffin, and lifted the
lid so that the man could step out amongst them.

'Were you really not dead after all?' asked they. 'And if not, why did
you let yourself be buried?'

At this the wives both confessed that they had each wished to prove
that her husband was stupider than the other. But the villagers
declared that they could not decide which was the most foolish--the
man who allowed himself to be persuaded that he was wearing fine
clothes when he was dressed in nothing, or the man who let himself be
buried when he was alive and well.

So the women quarrelled just as much as they did before, and no one
ever knew whose husband was the most foolish.

[Adapted from the _Neuislaendischen Volksmaerchen_.]

_ASMUND AND SIGNY_

Long, long ago, in the days when fairies, witches, giants, and ogres
still visited the earth, there lived a king who reigned over a great
and beautiful country. He was married to a wife whom he dearly loved,
and had two most promising children--a son called Asmund, and a
daughter who was named Signy.

The king and queen were very anxious to bring their children up well,
and the young prince and princess were taught everything likely to
make them clever and accomplished. They lived at home in their
father's palace, and he spared no pains to make their lives happy.

Prince Asmund dearly loved all outdoor sports and an open-air life,
and from his earliest childhood he had longed to live entirely in the
forest close by. After many arguments and entreaties he succeeded in
persuading the king to give him two great oak trees for his very own.

'Now,' said he to his sister, 'I will have the trees hollowed out, and
then I will make rooms in them and furnish them so that I shall be
able to live out in the forest.'

'Oh, Asmund!' exclaimed