and the king and his mother went with him, and he led them to his house. When they got there they found to what a dreadful place they had come, and, falling on their knees, they offered him great sums of money, if he would only spare their lives. The ogre’s heart was moved at the sight of the queen’s beauty, and he promised that he would do her no harm; but he stabbed the boy at once, and binding his body on a horse, turned him loose in the forest.
The ogre had happened to choose a horse which he had bought only the day before, and he did not know it was a magician, or he would not have been so foolish as to fix upon it on this occasion. The horse no sooner had been driven off with the prince’s body on its back than it galloped straight to the home of the fairies, and knocked at the door with its hoof. The fairies heard the knock, but were afraid to open till they had peeped from an upper window to see that it was no giant or ogre who could do them harm. ‘Oh, look, sister!’ cried the first to reach the window, it is a horse that has knocked, and on its back there is hound a dead boy, the most beautiful boy in all the world! Then the fairies ran to open the door, and let in the horse and unbound the ropes which fastened the young king on its back. And they gathered round to admire his beauty, and whispered one to the other: ‘We will make him alive again, and will keep him for our brother.’ And so they did, and for many years they all lived together as brothers and sisters.
By-and-by the boy grew into a man, as boys will, and then the oldest of the fairies said to her sisters: ‘Now I will marry him, and he shall be really your brother.’ So the young king married the fairy, and they lived happily together in the castle; but though he loved his wife he still longed to see the world.
At length this longing grew so strong on him that he could bear it no more; and, calling the fairies together, he said to them: ‘Dear wife and sisters, I must leave you
