,
and all talking together. Now these were the three Soudiche or Fates,
you must know.

The first said, "On this boy I bestow the gift of confronting great
dangers."

The second said, "I bestow the power of happily escaping all these
dangers, and of living to a good old age."

The third said, "I bestow upon him for wife the Princess born at the
self-same hour as he, and daughter of the very King sleeping above in
the loft."

At these words the lights went out and silence reigned around.

Now the King was greatly troubled, and wondered exceedingly; he felt
as if he had received a sword-thrust in the chest. He lay awake all
night thinking how to prevent the words of the Fates from coming true.

With the first glimmer of morning light the baby began to cry. The
charcoal-burner, on going over to it, found that his wife was dead.

"Poor little orphan," he said sadly, "what will become of thee without
a mother's care?"

"Confide this child to me," said the King, "I will look after it. He
shall be well provided for. You shall be given a sum of money large
enough to keep you without having to burn charcoal."

The poor man gladly agreed, and the King went away promising to send
some one for the child. The Queen and the courtiers thought it would
be an agreeable surprise for the King to hear that a charming little
Princess had been born on the night he was away. But instead of being
pleased he frowned and calling one of his servants, said to him, "Go
to the charcoal-burner's cottage in the, forest, and give the man this
purse in exchange for a new-born infant. On your way back drown
the child. See well that he is drowned, for if he should in any way
escape, you yourself shall suffer in his place."

The servant was given the child in a basket, and on reaching the
center of a narrow bridge that stretched across a wide and deep river,
he threw both basket and baby into the water.

"A prosperous journey to you, Mr. Son-in-Law," said the King, on
hearing the servant's story; for he fully believed the child was
drowned. But it was far from being the case; the little one was
floating happily along in its basket cradle, and slumbering as
sweetly as if his mother had sung him to sleep. Now it happened that
a fisherman, who was mending his nets before his cottage door, saw
the basket floating down the river. He jumped at once into his boat,
picked it up, and ran to tell his wife the good news.

"Look," said he, "you have al