to think that I
may have to spend all my days in this tower, and never see the great
wide world."

The poodle was silent for a few minutes. At length he said, "Dear Prince
Rolandor, do not give up hope. Have you ever thought of consulting my
old master, the Giant of the North Pole? He has a large chest in his
palace full of secrets which the winds have overheard, and perhaps the
key to Malvolia's spell is among them. If you will have a warm fur coat
and four fur boots made for me, I will go to the Giant and ask him."

The Prince gave his consent, and on the next day the royal tailor made
the poodle a magnificent sealskin coat and four splendid fur-lined
boots. Then the King wished him good speed, the Queen cried over him,
and the Prince, who could see from his high tower every corner of the
kingdom, watched him till he disappeared over the hills and far away.

Straight north the poodle ran. Soon he had left the fertile plains
behind him, and entered great, black pine forests where never a road was
to be seen. The cold wind howled through the trees, and at night the
brilliant stars sparkled over the dark and waving branches. Hungry
wolves and savage bears often pursued him, but somehow he always managed
to escape them all. At the end of the forest he found the frozen ocean
lit by the shuddering light of the aurora, flashing in a great fan from
east to west. Past white-tusked walruses and sleepy penguins he flew,
till on the eleventh day he saw the green, icy pinnacles of the Giant's
palace against the waving curtain of the Polar lights. On the evening of
the twelfth day he entered the castle.

The Giant of the North Pole was a tall, strong, yellow-haired fellow
wearing a crown of ice and a great sweeping mantle made from the white
fur of the polar bear. His servants were the Gusts,--strange, supple,
shadowy creatures moving quickly to and fro,--and his courtiers were
the whirlwinds and the storms. The Giant's wife sat by his side; she had
dark hair and eyes of icy, burning blue.

"Welcome, little Poldo," said the Giant; and his voice sounded like the
wind in the treetops; "what seek you here?"

"I seek some words of the Fairy Malvolia which were carried away by the
northeast wind at Prince Rolandor's christening," replied the poodle.

"Whew, oo-oo," whistled the Giant of the North Pole. "If I have them,
the words are yours."

He summoned two Gusts to bring forth the chest of secrets. It was made
of black stone