"'Well! she might do so and welcome,' said the old hag; 'but she must first lull him off to sleep and wake him up in the morning.'
"So when he was going to bed, she came with the sleeping draught, but this time he was aware of her and made as though he slept. But the old hag did not trust him for all that, for she took a pin and stuck it into his arm to try if he were sound asleep, but for all the pain it gave him he did not stir a bit, and so the princess got leave to come into him.
"Then everything was soon set right between them, and if they could only get rid of the old hag, he would be free. So he got the carpenters to make him a trap-door on the bridge over which the bridal train had to pass, for it was the custom there that the bride rode at the head of the train with her friends.
"So when they got well on the bridge, the trap-door tipped up with the bride and all the other old hags who were her bridesmaids. But King Valemon and the princess, and all the rest of the train, turned back to the castle and took all they could carry away of the gold and goods of the old hag, and so they set off for his own land, and were to hold their real wedding.
"And on the way King Valemon picked up those three little girls in the three huts and took them with them, and now she saw why it was he had taken her babes away and put them out at nurse; it was, that they might help her to find him out. And so they drank their bridal ale both stiff and strong."
THE GOLDEN BIRD.
"Once on a time there was a king who had a garden, and in that garden stood an apple-tree, and on that apple-tree grew one golden apple every year. But when the time drew on for plucking it, away it went, and there was no one who could tell who took it or what became of it. It was gone, and that was all they knew.
"This king had three sons, and so he said to them one day that he of them who could get him his apple again or lay hold of the thief should have the kingdom after him, were he the eldest, or the youngest, or the midmost.
"So the eldest set out first on this quest, and sat him down under the tree, and was to watch for the thief; and when night drew near a golden bird came flying, and his feathers gleamed a long way off; but when the king's son saw the bird and his beams he got so afraid he daren't stay his watch out, but flew back into the palace as fast as ever he could.