kingdom as a wedding present.  As soon as this proclamation was made in the neighbouring countries many young warriors went out, with servants and horses, to look for the three princesses.  There were at the king’s court at that time two foreign princes and they started off too, to see how fortunate they might be.  They put on fine armour, and took costly weapons, and they boasted of what they would do, and how they would never come back until they had accomplished their purpose.

We will leave these two princes to wander here and there in their search, and look at what was passing in another place.  Deep down in the heart of a wild wood there dwelt at that time an old woman who had an only son, who used daily to attend to his mother’s three hogs.  As the lad roamed through the forest, he one day cut a little pipe to play on.  He found much pleasure in the music, and he played so well that the notes charmed all who heard him.  The boy was well built, of an honest heart, and feared nothing.

One day it chanced that, as he was sitting in the wood playing on his pipe, while his three hogs grubbed among the roots of the pine-trees, a very old man came along.  He had a beard so long that it reached to his waist, and a large dog accompanied him.  When the lad saw the dog he said to himself—­

“I wish I had a dog like that as a companion here in the wood.  Then there would be no danger.”

The old man knew what the boy thought, and he said—­

“I have come to ask you to let me give you my dog for one of your hogs.”

The lad was ready to close the bargain, and gave a gray hog in exchange for the big dog.  As he was going the old man said—­

“I think you will be satisfied with your bargain.  The dog is not like other dogs.  His name is Hold-fast, and if you tell him to hold, hold he will whatever it may be, were it even the fiercest giant.”

Then he departed, and the lad thought that for once, at all events, fortune had been kind to him.

When evening had come, the lad called his dog, and drove the hogs to his home in the forest.  When the old woman learnt how her son had given away the gray hog for a dog, she flew into a great rage, and gave him a good beating.  The lad begged her to be quiet, but it was of no use, for she only seemed to get the more angry.  When the boy saw that it was no good pleading, he called to the dog—­

“Hold fast.”

The dog at once rushed forward, and, seizing the old woman, held her so firmly that she could not move; but he did her no harm.  The old woman now had to promise that she would agree to what her son had done; but she could not help thinking that she had suffered a great misfortune in losing her fat gray hog.

The next day the boy went once more to the forest with his dog and the two hogs.  When he arrived there he sat down and played upon his pipe as usual, and the dog danced to the music in such a wonderful manner that it was quite amazing.  While he thus sat, the old man with the gray beard came up to him out of the forest.  He was accompanied by a dog as large as the former one.  When the boy saw the fine animal, he said to himself—­