"Dear friends, how do you come here?"

The Coal answered, "I jumped out of the fire, by great good luck, or I should certainly have met my death; I should have been burned to ashes."

The Bean said, "I too have come out with a whole skin; but if the old woman had kept me in the pot, I should have been cooked into a soft mess, like my comrades.'

"Nor should I have met with a better fate," said the Straw. "The old woman has turned my brothers into fire and smoke; sixty of them she took up at once and deprived of life. Very luckily I managed to slip through her fingers."

"What had we better do now?" said the Coal.

"I think," answered the Bean, "that as we have been so lucky as to escape with our lives, we will join in goodfellowship together; and lest any more bad fortune should happen to us here, we will go abroad into foreign lands."

The proposal pleased the two others, and forthwith they started on their travels. Soon they came to a little brook, and as there was no stepping-stone, and no bridge, they could not tell how they were to get across. The Straw was struck with a good idea, and said:

"I will lay myself across, so that you can go over me as if I were a bridge."

So the Straw stretched himself from one bank to the other, and the Coal, who was of an ardent nature, quickly trotted up to go over the new-made bridge. When, however, she reached the middle, and heard the water rushing past beneath her, she was struck with terror and stopped, and could get no further. So the Straw began to get burned, broke into two pieces, and fell into the brook; and the Coal slipped down, hissing as she touched the water, and gave up the ghost.

The Bean, who had prudently remained behind on the bank, could not help laughing at the sight; and not being able to contain herself, went on laughing so excessively that she burst. And now she would certainly have been undone forever, if a tailor on his travels had not by good luck stopped to rest himself by the brook. As he had a compassionate heart, he took out needle and thread, and stitched her together again.

The Bean thanked him in the most elegant manner; but as he had sewn her up with black thread, all beans since then have a black seam down their bellies.

LITTLE BRIAR-ROSE.

LONG ago there was a king and a queen. They said every day, "Oh, if we only had a child!" and still they never got one. Then it happened, when once the queen was bathing, that a frog crept ashore out of the water, and said to her, "Your wish shall be fulfilled. Before a year passes you shall bring a daughter into the world."

What the frog said, happened, and the queen had a little girl that was so beautiful that the king could not contain himself for joy, and made a great feast. He invited not only his relatives, friends, and acquaintances, but also the wise women, that they might be gracious and kind to the child. Now, there were thirteen of them in his kingdom; but because he had only twelve gold plates for them to eat from, one of them had to stay at home. The feast was splendidly celebrated, and when it was over the wise women gave the child their wonderful gifts. One gave her virtue, another beauty, another wealth, and so with everything that people want in the world. But when eleven had spoken, suddenly the thirteenth came in. She wished to avenge herself, because she had not been asked; and without greeting or looking at any one, she cried out, "In her fifteenth year the king's daughter shall wound herself on a spindle, and fall down dead." And without saying another word, she turned around and left the hall. All were frightened. When the twelfth came up, who had her wish still to give, since she could not remove the sentence but only soften it, she said: "Yet it shall not be a real death, but only a hundred years' deep sleep, into which the king's daughter shall fall."

The king, who wanted to save his dear child from harm, sent out an order that all the spindles in the kingdom should be burned. But in the girl the gifts of the wise women were all fulfilled; for she was so beautiful, good, kind, and sensible, that nobody who saw her could help loving her. It happened that just on the day when she was fifteen years old the king and queen were not at home, and the little girl was left quite alone in the castle. Then she went wherever she pleased, looked in the rooms and chambers, and at last she got to an old tower. She went up the narrow winding stairs, and came to a little door. In the keyhole was a rusty key, and when she turned it the door sprang open, and there in a little room sat an old woman with a

spindle, and spun busily her flax. "Good-day, Aunty," said the king's daughter; "what are you doing there?" "I am spinning," said the old woman, and nodded. "What sort of a thing is that that jumps about so gayly?" said the girl. She took the spindle and wanted to spin too. But she had hardly touched the spindle before the spell was fulfilled, and she pricked her finger with it.

At the instant she felt the prick she fell down on the bed that stood there, and lay in a deep sleep. And this sleep spread over all the castle. The king and queen, who had just come home and entered the hall, began to go to sleep, and all the courtiers with them. The horses went to sleep in the stalls, the dogs in the yard, the doves on the roof, the flies on the wall, yes, the fire that was flickering on the hearth grew still and went to sleep. And the roast meat stopped sputtering, and the cook, who was going to take the cook-boy by the hair because he had forgotten something, let him go and slept. And the wind was still, and no leaf stirred in the trees by the castle.

But all around the castle a hedge of briars grew, that got higher every year and at last surrounded the whole castle and grew up over it, so that nothing more could be seen of it, not even the flag on the roof. But the story went about in the country of the beautiful sleeping Briar-Rose (for so the king's daughter was called); so that from time to time kings' sons came and tried to get through the hedge into the castle. But they could not; for the briars, as though they had hands, clung fast together, and the young men, stuck fast in them, could not get out again, and died a wretched death. After long, long years, there came again a king's son to that country, and heard how an old man told about the briar hedge; that there was a castle behind it, in which a wonderfully beautiful king's daughter called Briar-Rose had been sleeping for a hundred years, and that the king and the queen and all the court were sleeping with her. He knew too from his grandfather that many kings' sons had already come and tried to get through the briar hedge, but had all been caught in it and died a sad death. Then the young man said, "I am not afraid. I will go and see the beautiful BriarRose." The good old man might warn him as much as he pleased; he did not listen to his words.

But now the hundred years were just passed, and the day was come when Briar-Rose was to wake again. So when the king's son went up to the briars, they were just great beautiful flowers that opened of their own accord and let him through unhurt;

and behind him they closed together as a hedge again. In the yard he saw the horses and the mottled hounds lying and sleeping; on the roof perched the doves, their heads stuck under their wings; and when he came into the house the flies were sleeping on the wall, in the kitchen the cook still held up his hand as though to grab the boy, and the maid was sitting before the black hen that was to be plucked. Then he went further, and in the hall he saw all the courtiers lying and sleeping, and upon their throne lay the king and the queen. Then he went further, and all was so still that you could hear yourself breathe; and at last he came to the tower and opened the door of the little room where Briar-Rose was sleeping. There she lay, and she was so beautiful that he could not take his eyes off her; and he bent down and gave her a kiss. But just as he touched her with the kiss, Briar-Rose opened her eyes, awoke, and looked at him very kindly. Then they went downstairs together; and the king awoke, and the queen, and all the courtiers, and made great eyes at one another. And the horses in the yard got up and shook themselves, the hounds sprang about and wagged their tails, the doves on the roof pulled out their heads from under their wings, looked around and flew into the field, the flies on the wall went on crawling, the fire in the kitchen started up and blazed and cooked the dinner, the roast began to sputter again, and the cook gave the boy such a box on the ear that he screamed, and the maid finished plucking the hen. Then the wedding of the king's son with Briar-Rose was splendidly celebrated, and they lived happy till their lives' end.

NOTE BY THE GRIMMS.-From Hesse. The maid who sleeps in the castle, surrounded by a hedge until the right prince releases her, before whom the flowers part, is the sleeping Brunhild, according to the old Norse saga, whom a wall of flame surrounds which Sigurd alone can penetrate to wake her. The spindle on which she pricks herself, and from which she falls asleep, is the slumber thorn with which Odin pricks Brunhild. In the Pentameron it is a flax-root. In Perrault, 'La Belle au Bois Dormant.' Similar is the sleep of "Schneewitchen." The Italian and French stories both have the conclusion that is wanting in the German, but it occurs in our fragment 'Of the Wicked Stepmother.' It is noteworthy that in the important deviations of Perrault from Basile (who alone preserves the pretty trait that the nursling sucks the bit of flax from the finger of the sleeping mother), both agree so far as to the names of the children that the twins in the Pentameron are called Sun and Moon; in Perrault, Day and Dawn. These names recall the compounds of Day, Sun, and Moon, in the genealogy of the ‘Edda.'

THE THREE SPINNERS.

THERE was a lazy girl who would not spin; and her mother might say what she would, she could not make her do it. At last anger and impatience overcame the mother so that she struck the girl, and at that she began to cry aloud. Now, the queen was just driving by, and when she heard the crying she had the carriage stop, went into the house, and asked the mother why she beat her daughter so that one could hear the crying out on the street. Then the woman was ashamed to confess the laziness of her daughter, and said, "I cannot keep her from spinning. She wants to spin all the time, and I am poor and can't get the flax." Then the queen answered, "There is nothing I like to hear so much as spinning, and I am never happier than when the wheels hum. Let me take your daughter to the castle. I have flax enough. There she shall spin as much as she will."

The mother was well pleased at it, and the queen took the girl with her. When they came to the castle she took her up to three rooms, which lay from top to bottom full of the finest flax. "Now spin me this flax," said she; "and if you finish it you shall have my eldest son for a husband. Though you are poor, I don't mind that; your cheerful diligence is dowry enough." The girl was secretly frightened; for she could not have spun the flax if she had lived three hundred years, and had sat at it every day from morning till evening. When she was alone she began to cry, and sat so three days without lifting a hand. On the third day the queen came, and when she saw that nothing was spun yet she was surprised; but the girl excused herself by saying that she had not been able to begin on account of her great sorrow at leaving her mother's house. The queen was satisfied with that, but she said as she went away, "To-morrow you must begin to work."

When the girl was alone again she did not know what to think or to do; and in her trouble she went up to the window, and there she saw three women coming along. The first had a broad paddle-foot, the second had such a big under-lip that it hung down over her chin, and the third had a broad thumb. They stopped before the window, looked up, and asked the girl what was the matter. She told them her trouble. Then they offered her their help and said, "If you will invite us to your

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