However, as she wanted very much to go home to her father, she promised what was demanded of her. "Very well," said the voice "you must come again, and bring a knife with you, and scrape a hole in the iron."

And the Iron Stove gave her for a companion something, or somebody—she was not quite sure what—who walked by her side and did not speak, but took her safe home within two hours. Then there was great joy in her father's palace, and the old king fell on her neck, and kissed her many times. But she was very sorrowful, and said: "Dear father, you little know what has happened to me; I should never have come home again out of the great wild wood, if I had not passed by an Iron Stove. But I had to promise faithfully that I would return back to it, and marry it."

The old king was so terrified that he nearly fell into a swoon; for he had only this one child. They therefore consulted together, and decided to send, not the princess, but a miller's daughter, who was very beautiful; and leading her out, they gave her a knife, and told her how she was to scrape the Iron Stove. When she reached the wood, she scraped away for four-and-twenty hours, but could not make the slightest impression. But when day began to break, a voice in the Iron Stove called out, "It seems to me that it is day out there."

She answered: "It seems so to me too; I think I hear my father's mill turning."

"Oh, then, you are a miller's daughter; go straight back and send the king's daughter here!"

Then she returned and told the old king that the Iron Stove would not have her; he wanted the princess only. The old king was greatly frightened, and the princess wept. But they had still a swineherd's daughter, who was still more beautiful than the miller's girl; so they gave her a piece of gold, in order that she might be persuaded to go, instead of the king's daughter, to the Iron Stove. She was taken to the wood as before, and had also to scrape for four-and-twenty hours; but she could make no impression.

Now, when dawn broke, a voice called out of the Stove, "It seems to me it is day out there."

Then she answered, "It seems so to me too; I think I hear my father's little horn sounding."

"So you are the swineherd's daughter; go away directly, and bid the king's daughter come, and tell her it shall happen to her as I forewarned her; if she does not come, everything in the kingdom shall fall to pieces and tumble down, and no stone remain upon another."

When the king's daughter heard this, she began to cry; but there was nothing else to be done—she must keep her promise. She took leave of her father, put a knife in her pocket, and went out to the Iron Stove in the wood. When she arrived there, she began to scrape and scrape; the iron yielded, and in two hours she had already scraped a little hole. She looked in and saw a most beautiful youth: oh! he shone so with gold and precious stones, that he pleased her to the very bottom of her heart. She scraped away faster than ever, till she made the hole so large that he was able to get out.