nonsense and sends them to bed.  The following day the prince sends for the girls to come to the palace one after the other, and having questioned them, tells the youngest that he desires to see her father.  When she delivers the royal message the old baker begins to shake in his shoes, and exclaims, “I told you that your frivolous remarks would come to the ears of the prince, and now he sends for me to have me punished, without a doubt.”  “No, no, dear father; go to the palace and fear nothing.”  He goes, and, to be brief, the three marriages duly take place.  The sisters married to the royal gardener and valet soon become jealous of the young queen, and when they find she is about to become a mother they consult a fairy, who advises them to gain over the midwife and get her to substitute a little dog and throw the child into the river, which is done accordingly, when the first son with the gold star is born.  For the second son, a dog is also substituted, and the king, as on the former occasion, says, “God’s will be done:  take care of the poor creature.”  But when the little girl with the silver star is smuggled away and the king is shown a third puppy as the queen’s offspring, he is enraged.  “They’ll call me the father of dogs!” he exclaims, “and not without cause.”  He orders the queen to be shut up in a tower and fed on bread and water.  The children are picked up by a gardener, who has a garden close to the river, and brought up by his wife as their own.  In course of time the worthy couple die, and the king causes the children to be brought to the palace (how he came to know of them the story-teller does not inform us), and as they were very pretty and had been well brought up, he was greatly pleased with them.  Every Sunday they went to grand mass in the church, each having a ribbon on the brow to conceal the stars.  All the folk were astonished at their beauty.

One day, when the king was out hunting, an old woman came into the kitchen of the palace, where the sister happened to be, and exclaimed, “O how cold I am,” and she trembled and her teeth chattered.  “Come near the fire, my good mother,” said the little girl.  “Blessings on you, my child!  How beautiful you are!  If you had but the Water that dances, the Apple that sings, and the Bird of Truth, you’d not have your equal on the earth.”  “Yes, but how to obtain these wonders?” “You have two brothers who can procure them for you,” and so saying, the old woman went away.  When she told her brothers what the old woman had said, the eldest before setting out in quest of the three treasures leaves a poignard which as long as it can be drawn out of its sheath would betoken his welfare.  One day it can’t be drawn out, so the second brother goes off, leaving with his sister a rosary, as in Galland.  When she finds the beads won’t run on the string, she goes herself, on horseback, as a cavalier.  She comes to a large plain, and in a hollow tree sees a little old man with a beard of great length, which