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st going to thank her for her kindness, when the old man touched her head gently three times with his silver wand. Elsie felt immediately that she was changed into a bird. Her arms became wings, and her legs became eagle's legs with long claws, and her nose became a curved beak, while feathers covered her whole body. Then she rose up suddenly into the air, and soared away below the clouds like an eagle hatched from the egg. She flew southwards thus for several days, and would gladly have rested sometimes when her wings grew weary, but she felt no hunger. It came to pass one day that she was flying above a low wood where dogs were barking, which could not harm the bird, for they had no wings. All at once she felt her feathers pierced through with a sharp arrow, and she fell to the ground and fainted with terror. When Elsie awoke from her swoon and opened her eyes wide, she found herself lying under a bush in her human shape. How she came there, and all the other strange events which had happened to her, lay behind her like a dream. Presently a handsome young prince rode up, sprang from his horse, and gave his hand kindly to Elsie, saying, "By good fortune I rode here this morning. I have dreamed, dear lady, every night for the last half-year that I should find you here in the wood. Although I have ridden this way to no purpose more than a hundred times, my longing and my hopes were not extinguished. I shot a great eagle to-day, which must have fallen here, and I went to seek the game, and instead of the eagle I found--you!" Then he helped Elsie to mount the horse, and rode with her to the town, where the old king gave her a friendly reception. A few days afterwards they prepared a splendid wedding; and on the wedding morning fifty loads of treasure arrived, which had been sent by Elsie's dear foster-mother. After the old king's death, Elsie became queen, and in her old age she herself related the adventures of her youth. But since that time no one has ever seen or heard any more of the Wood of Tontla. * * * * * The King of the Misty Hill (Kreutzwald) is a somewhat similar, but very inferior story. A girl who is out in a wood all night sees a fire on a hill, and finds an old man standing by it. He had a long grey beard, and only one eye, and wore an iron helmet. He threw it on the ground, when two girls appeared, and the village child stayed with them till morning, when a young woman ga
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