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A King was once hunting in a great wood, and he hunted the game so eagerly that none ofhis courtiers could follow him. When evening came on he stood still and looked round him, and he saw that he had quite lost himself. He sought a way out, but could find none. Thenhe saw an old woman with a shaking head coming towards him; but she was a witch.‘Good woman, ’ he said to her, ‘can you not show me the way out of the wood?“Oh, certainly, Sir King, ’ she replied, ‘I can quite well do that, but on one condition, which ifyou do not fulfil you will never get out of the wood, and will die of hunger.’‘What is the condition?’ asked the King.‘I have a daughter, ’ said the old woman, ‘who is so beautiful that she has not her equal inthe world, and is well fitted to be your wife; if you will make her lady-queen I will show youthe way out of the wood.'The King in his anguish of mind consented, and the old woman led him to her little housewhere her daughter was sitting by the fire. She received the King as if she were expectinghim, and he saw that she was certainly very beautiful; but she did not please him, and hecould not look at her without a secret feeling of horror. As soon as he had lifted the maidenon to his horse the old woman showed him the way, and the King reached his palace, wherethe wedding was celebrated.The King had already been married once, and had by his first wife seven children, six boysand one girl, whom he loved more than anything in the world. And now, because he wasafraid that their step-mother might not treat them well and might do them harm, he putthem in a lonely castle that stood in the middle of a wood. It lay so hidden, and the way to itwas so hard to find, that he himself could not have found it out had not a wise-woman givenhim a reel of thread which possessed a marvellous property: when he threw it before him itunwound itself and showed him the way. But the King went so often to his dear childrenthat the Queen was offended at his absence. She grew curious, and wanted to know what hehad to do quite alone in the wood. She gave his servants a great deal of money, and theybetrayed the secret to her, and also told her of the reel which alone could point out the way.She had no rest now till she had found out where the King guarded the reel, and then shemade some little white shirts, and, as she had learnt from her witch-mother, sewed anenchantment in each of t
