e, a voice called out of the Stove, "It seems to me
it is day out there."

Then she answered, "It seems so to me too; I think I hear my father's
little horn sounding."

"So you are the swineherd's daughter; go away directly, and bid the
king's daughter come, and tell her it shall happen to her as I
forewarned her; if she does not come, everything in the kingdom shall
fall to pieces and tumble down, and no stone remain upon another."

When the king's daughter heard this, she began to cry; but there was
nothing else to be done--she must keep her promise. She took leave of
her father, put a knife in her pocket, and went out to the Iron Stove
in the wood. When she arrived there, she began to scrape and scrape;
the iron yielded, and in two hours she had already scraped a little
hole. She looked in and saw a most beautiful youth: oh! he shone so
with gold and precious stones, that he pleased her to the very bottom
of her heart. She scraped away faster than ever, till she made the
hole so large that he was able to get out.

Then he said, "You are mine, and I am yours, you have freed me, and
you are my bride."

He wished to take her home to his kingdom, but she begged that she
might go once more to see her father; and the prince gave her leave,
on condition that she should speak no more than three words with him,
and come back again. So she went home; but, alas! being a little
chatter-box, she spoke more than three words. The Iron Stove
disappeared instantly, and was removed far away, over glass mountains
and sharp swords; but the king's son, being now freed, was not shut up
in it.

The princess took leave of her father, and took some money with her,
but not much, and went again into the great wood. There she looked
everywhere for the Iron Stove, but it was not to be found.

She sought it for nine days, until her hunger was so great that she
did not know what to do; for she had eaten all the food she could
find, and had nothing left to keep her alive. At evening-tide she
climbed up into a little tree, and purposed spending the night there,
for fear of the wild beasts. But when midnight came she saw afar off a
little glimmering light, and thinking, "Oh! there I should be safe,"
climbed down and went towards it.

Then she came to a little old house, overgrown with grass, with a
little heap of wood before the door. Wondering how it came there, she
looked in through the window, and saw nothing inside but a number of
fat