have indeed; but there’s no help for it.  Go home, my son, lest you follow them.”  Then he said to her:  “Dear old woman, do you know what?  I know that you will be glad to liberate yourself from that pest.”  The old woman interrupted him:  “How should I not?  It captured me, too, in this way, but now I have no means of escape.”  Then he proceeded:  “Listen well to what I am going to say to you.  Ask it whither it goes and where its strength is; then kiss all that place where it tells you its strength is, as if from love, till you ascertain it, and afterward tell me when I come.”  Then the prince went off to the palace, and the old woman remained in the water-mill.  When the dragon came in, the old woman began to question it:  “Where in God’s name have you been?  Whither do you go so far?  You will never tell me whither you go.”  The dragon replied:  “Well, my dear old woman, I do go far.”  Then the old woman began to coax it:  “And why do you go so far?  Tell me where your strength is.  If I knew where your strength is, I don’t know what I should do for love; I would kiss all that place.”  Thereupon the dragon smiled and said to her:  “Yonder is my strength, in that fireplace.”  Then the old woman began to fondle and kiss the fireplace, and the dragon on seeing it burst into a laugh and said to her:  “Silly old woman, my strength isn’t there; my strength is in that tree-fungus in front of the house.”  Then the old woman began again to fondle and kiss the tree, and the dragon again laughed, and said to her:  “Away, old woman! my strength isn’t there.”  Then the old woman inquired:  “Where is it?” The dragon began to give an account in detail:  “My strength is a long way off, and you cannot go thither.  Far in another empire under the emperor’s city is a lake, in that lake is a dragon, and in that dragon a boar, and in the boar a pigeon, and in that is my strength.”  The next morning when the dragon went away from the mill, the prince came to the old woman, and the old woman told him all that she had heard from the dragon.  Then he left his home, and disguised himself; he put shepherd’s boots to his feet, took a shepherd’s staff in his hand, and went into the world.  As he went on thus from village to village, and from town to town, at last he came into another empire and into the imperial city, in a lake under which the dragon was.  On going into the town he began to inquire who wanted a shepherd.  The citizens told him that the emperor did.  Then he went straight to the emperor.  After he announced himself, the emperor admitted him into his presence, and asked him:  “Do you wish to keep sheep?” He replied:  “I do, illustrious crown!” Then the emperor engaged him, and began to inform and instruct him:  “There is here a lake, and alongside of the lake very beautiful pasture, and when you call the sheep out, they go thither at once, and spread themselves round the lake; but whatever shepherd goes off there, that shepherd returns back no more.  Therefore, my son, I tell