Hans could ill brook being called a coward, and that, too, by a woman—such a little woman, too—so, crossing himself, he put spurs to his horse and ascended the hill till he arrived at the gate of the castle.
"What do you want?" said the wizard, suddenly making his appearance at the window.
"Say," said the princess in the ear of her husband, "that you have come in the name of the Princess Bertha, our future queen, to bid him flee the country."
Hans cried out in a loud voice as he was instructed by his spouse. The wizard answered with a loud laugh, and descended the staircase.
Now, the princess knew that evil charms availed not against good ones, so, touching her husband with her wand, she thus made him proof against any magic power of the wizard.
"Wait a bit," said the magician, descending; "you will be no harder task to manage than the rest have been, I'll warrant," and he proceeded to draw a circle on the ground and to mumble a spell.
"Enough of this mummery," said Hans, at the instigation of the princess. "Prepare to leave the country at once, or you die."
"These words to me, you churl!" cried the wizard, pale with rage. "Dost know who I am?"
"I know, and I defy you—both your arms and your spells."
Then the wizard, mortified at finding that his charm failed upon Hans, entered his castle in great wrath, put on his armour, and came forth mounted on a black charger with fiery eyes, and ran at Hans furiously with his lance, but the lance was shivered into splinters against the magical armour of Hans.