the fire-place of the small hut, in order to prepare a healing salve for
the wounds. While he was thus occupied, how much was he astonished to
hear the moanings and lamentations of a human voice from the bed on
which he had just before deposited the wolf. On returning thither his
wonder was inexpressible on perceiving, instead of the frightful wild
beast, a most beautiful damsel, on whose head the wound which he had
inflicted was bleeding through her fine golden hair, and whose right
arm, in all its grace and snow-white luxuriance, was stretched out
motionless, for it had been broken by the blow from his axe.

"Pray," said she, "have pity, and do not kill me outright. The little
life that I have still left is, indeed, painful enough, and may not
last long; yet, sad as my condition is, it is yet tenfold better than
death."

The young man then sat down weeping beside her, and she explained to him
that she was the daughter of a magician, on the other side of the
mountain, who had sent her out in the shape of a wolf to collect plants
from places which, in her own proper form, she could not have reached.
It was but in terror she had made that violent spring which the youth
had mistaken for an attack on him, when her only wish had been to pass
by him.

"But you directly broke my right arm," said she, "though I had no evil
design against you."

How she had now regained her proper shape she could not imagine, but to
the youth it was quite clear that the picture of St. George and the
Dragon had broken the spell by which the poor girl had been transformed.