but on the wane; that it was
only the fifteenth of the month and that the capon had gone to the mill;
and that she asked him to spare the pheasant for the sake of the
partridge. The prince, too, understood the metaphor, and having summoned
the servant, he cried: "Rogue! you have eaten the capon, fifteen
patties, and a good slice of the cake. Thank that girl who has
interceded for you; if she had not, I would have hung you."

A few months after this, the huntsman found a gold mortar, and wished to
present it to the prince. But his daughter said: "You will be laughed at
for this present. You will see that the prince will say to you: 'The
mortar is fine and good, but, peasant, where is the pestle?'" The father
did not listen to his daughter; but when he carried the mortar to the
prince, he was greeted as his daughter had foretold. "My daughter told
me so," said the huntsman. "Ah! if I had only listened to her!" The
prince heard these words and said to him: "Your daughter, who pretends
to be so wise, must make me a hundred ells of cloth out of four ounces
of flax; if she does not I will hang you and her." The poor father
returned home weeping, and sure that he and his daughter must die, for
who could make a hundred ells of cloth with four ounces of flax. His
daughter came out to meet him, and when she learned why he was weeping,
said: "Is that all you are weeping for? Quick, get me the flax and I
will manage it." She made four small cords of the flax and said to her
father: "Take these cords and tell him that when he makes me a loom out
of these cords I will weave the hundred ells of cloth." When the prince
heard this answer he did not know what to say, and thought no more about
condemning the father or the daughter.

The next day he went to the wood to visit the girl. Her mother was dead,
and her father was out in the fields digging. The prince knocked, but no
one opened. He knocked louder, but the same thing. The young girl was
deaf to him. Finally, tired of waiting, he broke open the door and
entered: "Rude girl! who taught you not to open to one of my rank? Where
are your father and mother?" "Who knew it was you? My father is where he
should be and my mother is weeping for her sins. You must leave, for I
have something else to do than listen to you." The prince went away in
anger and complained to the father of his daughter's rude manners, but
the father excused her. The prince, at last seeing how wise and cunning
she