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Tales from the Fjeld

of water to be found, and he was not far off being half dead of thirst. He kept himself as long as he could from biting a hole in the lemon he still had, but at last there was no help for it. So when he had bitten the hole, there sat a princess inside it also; she was the loveliest in twelve kingdoms, and she screamed out if she could not get water she must die at once. So Taper Tom ran about hunting for water; and this time he fell upon the king's miller, and he showed him the way to the mill-dam. So when he came to the dam with her and gave her some water, she came quite out of the lemon, and was stark naked. So Taper Tom had to let her have the wrap he had to throw over her, and then she hid herself up a tree while he went up to the king's palace to fetch her clothes, and to tell the king how he had got her, and, in a word, told him the whole story.

But while this was going on, the cook came down to the mill-dam to fetch water; and when she saw the lovely face which played on the water, she thought it was her own, and grew so glad she fell a-dancing and jumping because she had grown so pretty.

"The de'il carry water," she cried, "since I am so pretty;" and away she threw the water-buckets. But in a little while she got to see that the face in the mill-dam belonged to the princess who sat up in the tree; and then she got so cross, that she tore her down from the tree, and threw her out into the dam. But she herself put on Taper Tom's cloak, and crept up into the tree.

So when the king came and set eyes on the ugly swarthy kitchen-maid, he turned white and red; but