ll not grant you
is permission to leave the palace. Now, do as I tell you. Go to your
father and ask him to give you a wooden wheel-barrow, and a bear's skin.
When you have got them bring them to me, and I will touch them with my
magic wand. The wheel-barrow will then move of itself, and will take
you at full speed wherever you want to go, and the bear's skin will make
such a covering for you, that no one will recognise you.'

So the princess did as the witch advised her. The king, when he heard
her strange request, was greatly astonished, and asked her what she
meant to do with a wheel-barrow and a bear's skin. And the princess
answered, 'You never let me leave the house--at least you might grant me
this request' So the king granted it, and the princess went back to her
nurse, taking the barrow and the bear's skin with her.

As soon as the witch saw them, she touched them with her magic wand,
and in a moment the barrow began to move about in all directions. The
princess next put on the bear's skin, which so completely changed her
appearance, that no one could have known that she was a girl and not a
bear. In this strange attire she seated herself on the barrow, and in
a few minutes she found herself far away from the palace, and moving
rapidly through a great forest. Here she stopped the barrow with a sign
that the witch had shown her, and hid herself and it in a thick grove of
flowering shrubs.

Now it happened that the prince of that country was hunting with his
dogs in the forest. Suddenly he caught sight of the bear hiding among
the shrubs, and calling his dogs, hounded them on to attack it. But the
girl, seeing what peril she was in, cried, 'Call off your dogs, or they
will kill me. What harm have I ever done to you?' At these words, coming
from a bear, the prince was so startled that for a moment he stood
stock-still, then he said quite gently, 'Will you come with me? I will
take you to my home.'

'I will come gladly,' replied the bear; and seating herself on the
barrow it at once began to move in the direction of the prince's palace.
You may imagine the surprise of the prince's mother when she saw her son
return accompanied by a bear, who at once set about doing the house-work
better than any servant that the queen had ever seen.

Now it happened that there were great festivities going on in the palace
of a neighbouring prince, and at dinner, one day, the prince said to his
mother: 'This evening there is to