She answered, "I have wandered from my father's kingdom, and lost
myself, and cannot get home again."

Then the voice spoke out of the Iron Stove: "I will help you home
again, and that, too, in a short time, if you will promise to do what
I desire. I am a greater prince than you are a princess, and I wish to
marry you."

She was very much frightened, and thought, "Oh, what shall I do! How
can I marry an Iron Stove?"

However, as she wanted very much to go home to her father, she
promised what was demanded of her. "Very well," said the voice "you
must come again, and bring a knife with you, and scrape a hole in the
iron."

And the Iron Stove gave her for a companion something, or
somebody--she was not quite sure what--who walked by her side and did
not speak, but took her safe home within two hours. Then there was
great joy in her father's palace, and the old king fell on her neck,
and kissed her many times. But she was very sorrowful, and said: "Dear
father, you little know what has happened to me; I should never have
come home again out of the great wild wood, if I had not passed by an
Iron Stove. But I had to promise faithfully that I would return back
to it, and marry it."

The old king was so terrified that he nearly fell into a swoon; for he
had only this one child. They therefore consulted together, and
decided to send, not the princess, but a miller's daughter, who was
very beautiful; and leading her out, they gave her a knife, and told
her how she was to scrape the Iron Stove. When she reached the wood,
she scraped away for four-and-twenty hours, but could not make the
slightest impression. But when day began to break, a voice in the Iron
Stove called out, "It seems to me that it is day out there."

She answered: "It seems so to me too; I think I hear my father's mill
turning."

"Oh, then, you are a miller's daughter; go straight back and send the
king's daughter here!"

Then she returned and told the old king that the Iron Stove would not
have her; he wanted the princess only. The old king was greatly
frightened, and the princess wept. But they had still a swineherd's
daughter, who was still more beautiful than the miller's girl; so they
gave her a piece of gold, in order that she might be persuaded to go,
instead of the king's daughter, to the Iron Stove. She was taken to
the wood as before, and had also to scrape for four-and-twenty hours;
but she could make no impression.

Now, when dawn brok