The wind began to moan about the cottage, and grew louder and louder, till a great gust came down the chimney, and again scattered the white ashes all over the place.  But the princess was by this time fast asleep, and never woke till the wind had sunk to silence.  One of the consequences, however, of sleeping when one ought to be awake is waking when one ought to be asleep; and the princess awoke in the black midnight, and found enough to keep her awake.  For although the wind had fallen, there was a far more terrible howling than that of the wildest wind all about the cottage.  Nor was the howling all; the air was full of strange cries; and everywhere she heard the noise of claws scratching against the house, which seemed all doors and windows, so crowded were the sounds, and from so many directions.  All the night long she lay half swooning, yet listening to the hideous noises.  But with the first glimmer of morning they ceased.

Then she said to herself, “How fortunate it was that I woke!  They would have eaten me up if I had been asleep.”  The miserable little wretch actually talked as if she had kept them out!  If she had done her work in the day, she would have slept through the terrors of the darkness, and awaked fearless; whereas now, she had in the storehouse of her heart a whole harvest of agonies, reaped from the dun fields of the night!

They were neither wolves nor hyenas which had caused her such dismay, but creatures of the air, more frightful still, which, as soon as the smoke of the burning fir-wood ceased to spread itself abroad, and the sun was a sufficient distance down the sky, and the lone cold woman was out, came flying and howling about the cottage, trying to get in at every door and window.  Down the chimney they would have got, but that at the heart of the fire there always lay a certain fir-cone, which looked like solid gold red-hot, and which, although it might easily get covered up with ashes, so as to be quite invisible, was continually in a glow fit to kindle all the fir-cones in the world; this it was which had kept the horrible birds—­some say they have a claw at the tip of every wing-feather—­from tearing the poor naughty princess to pieces, and gobbling her up.

When she rose and looked about her, she was dismayed to see what a state the cottage was in.  The fire was out, and the windows were all dim with the wings and claws of the dirty birds, while the bed from which she had just risen was brown and withered, and half its purple bells had fallen.  But she consoled herself that she could set all to rights in a few minutes—­only she must breakfast first.  And, sure enough, there was a basin of the delicious bread and milk ready for her in the hole of the wall!

After she had eaten it, she felt comfortable, and sat for a long time building castles in the air—­till she was actually hungry again, without having done an atom of work.  She ate again, and was idle again, and ate again.  Then it grew dark, and she went trembling to bed, for now she remembered the horrors of the last night.  This time she never slept at all, but spent the long hours in grievous terror, for the noises were worse than before.  She vowed she would not pass another night in such a hateful haunted old shed for all the ugly women, witches, and ogresses in the wide world.  In the morning, however, she fell asleep, and slept late.