"It was not so easy to get the king's ear, for the ugly black cook hung over him early and late; but at last they made out a story, and said that a challenge had come from a neighbour king, and so they got him out; and when he came to see the lovely princess, he was so taken with her, he was for holding the bridal feast on the spot; and when he heard how badly the ugly black cook had behaved to her, he said they should take her and roll her down hill in a cask full of nails. Then they kept the bridal feast at such a rate that it was heard and talked of over twelve kingdoms."
THE PRIEST AND THE CLERK.
"Once on a time there was a priest, who was such a bully, that he bawled out, ever so far off, whenever he met anyone driving on the king's highway,—
"'Out of the way, out of the way! Here comes the priest!'
"One day when he was driving along and behaving so, he met the king himself.
"'Out of the way, out of the way,' he bawled a long way off. But the king drove on and kept his own; so that time it was the priest who had to turn his horse aside, and when the king came alongside him, he said, 'To-morrow you shall come to me to the palace, and if you can't answer three questions which I will set you, you shall lose hood and gown for your pride's sake.'
"This was something else than the priest was wont to hear. He could bawl and bully, shout, and behave worse than badly. All THAT he could do, but question and answer was out of his power. So he set off to the clerk who was said to be better in a gown than the priest himself, and told him he had no mind to go to the king.
"'For one fool can ask more than ten wise men can answer;' and the end was, he got the clerk to go in his stead.
"Yes! The clerk set off, and came to the palace in the priest's gown and hood. There the king met him out in the porch with crown and sceptre, and was so grand it glittered and gleamed from him.