he princess. However, when he reached home in the
evening, he felt so ill he was obliged to go to bed, with no one to
attend on him except his old nurse. But of this, of course, the
princess knew nothing; and the poor girl, fearing lest some evil
should have befallen him, or some other maiden more beautiful than she
should have stolen his heart from her, grew almost sick with waiting.
Lonely, indeed, she was, for her father, who would have helped her,
was travelling in a foreign country, and she knew not how to obtain
news of her lover.

* * * * *

In this manner time passed away, and one day, as she sat by the open
window crying and feeling very sad, a little bird came and perched on
the branch of a tree that stood just underneath. It began to sing, and
so beautifully that the princess was obliged to stop crying and listen
to it, and very soon she found out that the bird was trying to attract
her attention.

'_Tu-whit, tu-whit!_ your lover is sick!' it sang.

'Alas!' cried the princess. 'What can I do?'

'_Tu-whit, tu-whit!_ you must go to your father's palace!'

'And what shall I do there?' she asked.

'_Tu-whit!_ there you will find a snake with nine young ones.'

'Ugh!' answered the princess with a shiver, for she did not like
snakes. But the little bird paid no heed.

'Put them in a basket and go to the Green Knight's palace,' said she.

'And what am I to do with them when I get there?' she cried, blushing
all over, though there was no one to see her but the bird.

'Dress yourself as a kitchen-maid and ask for a place. _Tu-whit!_ Then
you must make soup out of the snakes. Give it three times to the
knight and he will be cured. _Tu-whit!_'

'But what has made him ill?' asked the princess. The bird, however,
had flown away, and there was nothing for it but to go to her father's
palace and look for the snakes. When she came there she found the
mother snake with the nine little snakes all curled up so that you
could hardly tell their heads from their tails. The princess did not
like having to touch them, but when the old snake had wriggled out of
the nest to bask a little in the sun, she picked up the young ones and
put them in a basket as the bird had told her, and ran off to find the
Green Knight's castle. All day she walked along, sometimes stopping to
pick the wild berries, or to gather a nosegay; but though she rested
now and then, she would not lie down to sleep before