Once upon a time, in a country far away, there lived and ruled an old queen who had such a wicked heart that she was not happy unless she was working evil to others. She had one daughter who was very beautiful, and whom she made use of to further her own evil plans; for, whenever a suitor came to apply for her hand, the old queen set him an impossible task, and chopped off his head without any pity when he could not perform it.

Now, in another country there lived a young prince who had heard of this lovely girl, and he begged his father to let him go and try his luck.

“Not a bit of it,” said the king. “You would only lose your head like the rest.”

But the prince was very anxious to go, and when he found his father was firm, he fell ill and took to his bed for seven years, and not all the doctors in the land could make him well again or restore his fallen spirits. Then the father knew that the lad must die, unless he was allowed to have his own way, so he said:

“Get up, my son, and try your fate.”

At these joyful words the boy jumped out of bed, quite recovered, and you may be sure it was not long before he was ready for his journey and on the road.

One day, as he was swinging along over hill and dale, and fern and brake, he saw a great big thing lying by the roadside. At first he thought it was a huge animal, but as he drew nearer he saw that it was really an enormously fat man, who was as round and jolly as you can imagine. Seeing the traveler, he rose to his feet, and I do believe the earth trembled as he did so.

“If you are in need of a servant, take me, and you will not repent,” he said, pulling off his cap and bowing.

“Why, whatever should I do with such a fat fellow as you?” answered the prince.

“If I were three thousand times as fat it would not matter, so long as I served you well,” said the man.

“Hum! well, that is very true,” replied the prince. “You may come along, and I dare say I shall be able to put you to some use.”

So they journeyed on together, and presently they came upon a man lying with his ear pressed to the ground.

“What are you doing?” asked the prince.

“I am listening,” answered the man. “I can hear everything that is going on in the world, even the growing of the grass.”

“Ah,” said the prince, “then you can tell me what you hear in the palace of the old queen.”

“I hear the cutting off of a suitor’s head.”

“Come with me, then,” said the prince, “for I can see that you will be useful.”

A little farther on they came upon a pair of legs lying stretched on the grass, but they were so long that the travelers had to walk an hour before they came to the body, and then nearly another hour before they reached the head.

“Well, what a long strip of a chap you are!” said the prince.

“Why, master, you have only seen me when I am lying down,” replied the man. “Just you wait till I stand up. I am thrice as tall as the highest mountain you have ever seen on your travels. Just let me come and be your servant, and I promise that you will find me useful.”

“Willingly,” answered the prince.

Then they all went on their way again till they came to a wood, and here they found a man who, though he was lying in the full heat of the sun, was shivering and shaking so that it was a wonder his teeth did not fall out of his head.

“Why, my good man,” said the prince, “what makes you shiver so on this hot day?”

“Alas!” groaned the man, “the hotter the day the colder I am; the sun freezes the very marrow in my bones; and when it is what you call cold, I begin to grow hot, so that I nearly burn to death. I cannot bear cold because it is so hot, nor heat because it is so cold.”

“Well, you are an odd fellow,” said the prince. “Suppose you get up and join my train?” So the man agreed.

The next man they met was standing in a field turning his head from side to side in a way that made your neck ache to watch him.

“What are you looking for?” asked the prince.

“I am looking for nothing,” answered the man. “But I have such keen sight that I can see all over the world, through woods and forests, and hills and mountains; nothing can escape my eyes.”

“Well,” said the prince, “if you are willing to take service, join my train, for I have need of such as you.”

Then they all journeyed on together in a very merry fashion, for the prince was light-hearted at the thought of his beautiful bride that was to be. You see, he had quite made up his mind to get the better of the wicked queen. Soon they reached the palace, and the prince presented himself to the queen, and said:

“I am come to ask the hand of your daughter in marriage. Set me what task you like, so long as I may marry her when it is done.”

“Three tasks I will set you,” said the queen, “and when they are done you shall be her husband. First, you must find me the ring that I have dropped in the sea near the palace.”

The prince went home to his servants, and said:

“Now is your chance to prove your worth. You must find me a ring that lies at the bottom of the sea.”

“I will see where it lies,” said the keen-sighted one; and suddenly he shouted: “There it is; it lies on a rock at the bottom of the waves!”

“I would soon fetch it, if I could see it,” said the long man.

“I can arrange that,” chimed in the fat one, and he lay down beside the sea and began to drink.

And he drank and drank till the sea disappeared, and the bottom lay stretched out before them as dry as a meadow. Then the long man took one stride, and picked up the ring and brought it to the prince.

The old queen was very much surprised to see the ring, but she concealed her annoyance, and, leading the youth to the window, said:

“In yonder field a hundred fat oxen are feeding. You must eat them all before noon, and, in case you are thirsty, you must drink the contents of the hundred casks of wine that are in the cellar.”

“Certainly,” said the youth, cheerfully. “But I should like to invite a friend to eat with me.”

“Oh, by all means,” replied the old hag, with a smile.

So the prince went to his friends and told them the news.

“You will help me to-day?” he said, turning to the fat man; “and for once you will have a good meal.”

So they went straightway to the field where the oxen were, and in no time at all the fat man had gobbled up every one, and still looked hungry. Then the prince took him down to the cellar, and he quenched his thirst with the hundred casks of wine.

Again the youth presented himself to the witch, and astonished her with the news that the task was done.

“Oho! my fine fellow,” she grumbled to herself, “I will catch you yet.

“To-night,” she added aloud, “I will bring the princess and leave her to sit with you; but beware lest you fall asleep, for if I come at twelve and find the princess gone, you are a lost man!”

“That does not sound difficult,” thought the prince. “Surely I can keep awake, if I want to.”

So he told his servants what the third task was to be, and they all agreed that a watch had better be kept, lest the old woman should play some trick.

At nightfall the old queen brought her daughter to the prince’s house and returned to the palace. As soon as she was gone, the long man wound himself around the house; the listener lay with his ear to the ground; the fat one stood in the doorway, completely blocking the entrance, and the keen-eyed one kept watch. Within sat the princess, silent as a statue, the moonlight lighting up her beautiful face with a radiant glory, so that the prince could only gaze at her in awe and wonder. So far it was well; but at half past eleven a spell, cast by the old queen, fell on them all, and they slept, and immediately the princess was spirited away.

At a quarter to twelve the spell lost its power, and they awoke to discover what a calamity had fallen upon them.

“Oh, woe is me! woe is me!” cried the prince. “What can save us now?” and the faithful servants wept in unison.

Suddenly the listener said:

“Hark! be still, and I will listen.”

They were quiet at once, and he listened for a moment.

“I hear her bewailing her fate!” he cried.

Then the keen-sighted man turned his head from side to side and cried joyfully:

“I see her sitting on a rock, three hundred miles away. Our long friend can reach her in two strides.”

“Willingly,” cried the man, and he was up and at the foot of the rock before the others could look round. He took the princess in his arms, and she was back in the prince’s house just one moment before twelve, and they all sat down together and rejoiced.

As the clock struck twelve, the old queen came creeping along, looking very spiteful, as she thought she had really won this time; for was not her daughter three hundred miles away? She was not, as we know, and when the queen saw this she felt so angry she would like to have ordered all their heads to be chopped off.

“There must be some one here who is cleverer than I!” she screamed, and then she fell to crying, but it was of no use. The prince was firm as a rock, and she had to consent to the wedding; but she whispered to her daughter:

“His servants have done everything for him. Aren’t you ashamed to have a husband who can do nothing at all for himself?”

The daughter had a proud and haughty temper, and her pride began to rise up angrily. So next day she commanded three hundred loads of wood to be brought and piled up in the palace yard and set alight. Then she told the prince that he had performed the tasks only by the help of his servants, and before she would marry him some one must sit upon the woodpile and stay there till it was burned out; for she thought no servant would do so much for him, and he surely would have to do this himself. However, she was wrong, for the freezing man claimed this as his share of the work, and he mounted the woodpile without delay.

For three days and three nights it blazed away, till only ashes were left, and there stood the freezing man shivering like a jelly.

“If it had burned much longer, I should have been benumbed with the cold,” he said, with chattering teeth.

Now, the princess saw that she could delay no longer, so they set off to the church, but the queen made yet another attempt to prevent the wedding. She called her attendants, and sent them to waylay the party and kill every one but the princess. However, the listener had been keeping his ears open, and he heard this order; so they put on more speed and reached the church first, and were married. At the church door the five servants took leave of their master and went out into the world to try their fortune alone.

The prince and his wife set forth on their homeward journey, and at the end of the first day they came upon a village where a swineherd stood feeding his pigs.

“Do you know who I am?” said the prince to his wife. “Yonder man is my father, and our duty now is to tend the pigs with him.”

They went into the cottage, and during the night the prince took away her splendid clothes, so that in the morning she had to put on an old dress and shoes belonging to the swineherd’s wife.

These were given to her grudgingly, and only for her husband’s sake, as the woman told her. So the princess was now very miserable, and believed that her husband was really a swineherd; but she determined to make the best of it, and turn to and do her share of the work, and said to herself:

“It is a punishment for all my pride.”

This went on for a week, and then she was so worn out that she sat down by the wayside and burst into tears. Some kindly villagers asked her what was the matter, and if she knew what her husband was?

“He is a swineherd,” she answered, “and has just gone to market with some of his pigs.”

“Come with us, and we will show you where he is,” they said; and they took her away over the hill to the king’s palace, and there in the hall stood her husband surrounded by courtiers, and so richly dressed that she did not know him, till he fell upon her neck, saying:

“We have borne much for each other, now let us be happy.”

Then there was great rejoicing, and the marriage-feast was celebrated, and all I can say is, that I wish we had been there to share the merrymaking.