sail, and the traveller flogged her with the three rods till the blood trickled
down, and at last she could scarcely fly; she contrived, however, to reach
the mountain. “What a hail-storm!” she said, as she entered; “I have never
been out in such weather as this.”
“Yes, there may be too much of a good thing sometimes,” said the
magician.
Then the princess told him that Jean had guessed rightly the second time,
and if he succeeded the next morning, he would win, and she could never
come to the mountain again, or practice magic as she had done, and
therefore she was quite unhappy. “I will find out something for you to think
of which he will never guess, unless he is a greater conjuror than myself.
But now let us be merry.”
Then he took the princess by both hands, and they danced with all the
little goblins and Jean-o’-lanterns in the room. The red spiders sprang here
and there on the walls quite as merrily, and the flowers of fire appeared as if
they were throwing out sparks. The owl beat the drum, the crickets whistled
and the grasshoppers played the mouth-organ. It was a very ridiculous ball.
After they had danced enough, the princess was obliged to go home, for
fear she should be missed at the palace. The magician offered to go with
her, that they might be company to each other on the way. Then they flew
away through the bad weather, and the traveller followed them, and broke
his three rods across their shoulders. The magician had never been out in
such a hail-storm as this. Just by the palace the magician stopped to wish
the princess farewell, and to whisper in her ear, “To-morrow think of my
head.”
But the traveller heard it, and just as the princess slipped through the
window into her bedroom, and the magician turned round to fly back to the
mountain, he seized him by the long black beard, and with his sabre cut off
the wicked conjuror’s head just behind the shoulders, so that he could not
even see who it was. He threw the body into the sea to the fishes, and after
dipping the head into the water, he tied it up in a silk handkerchief, took it
with him to the inn, and then went to bed. The next morning he gave Jean
