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How to Win a Prince


ONCE on a time there was a king's son who made love to a lass, but after they had become great friends and were as good as betrothed, the prince began to think little of her, and he got it into his head that she wasn't clever enough for him, and so he wouldn't have her.

So he thought how he might be rid of her; and at last he said he would take her to wife all the same if she could come to him—

"Not driving,
And not riding;
Not walking,
And not carried;
Not fasting,
And not full-fed;
Not naked,
And not clad;
Not in the daylight,
And not by night."

For all that he fancied she could never do.

So she took three barleycorns and swallowed them, and then she was not fasting, and yet not full-fed; and next she threw a net over her, and so she was

Not naked,
And yet not clad

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