just the same as it had been before, and a man came and
lay down beside her, and late at night, when she could
hear that he was sleeping, she got up and kindled a light,
lit her candle, let her light shine on him, and saw him, and
he was the handsomest prince that eyes had ever beheld,
and she loved him so much that it seemed to her that she
must die if she did not kiss him that very moment. So
she did kiss him; but while she was doing it she let three
drops of hot tallow fall upon his shirt, and he awoke.
"What have you done now?" said he; "you have brought
misery on both of us. If you had but held out for the
space of one year I should have been free. I have a
step-mother who has bewitched me so that I am a white bear
by day and a man by night; but now all is at an end
between you and me, and I must leave you, and go to her.
She lives in a castle which lies east of the sun and west of
the moon, and there too is a princess with a nose which
is three ells long, and she now is the one whom I must
marry."

She wept and lamented, but all in vain, for go he must.
Then she asked him if she could not go with him. But
no, that could not be. "Can you tell me the way then,
and I will seek you--that I may surely be allowed to do!"

"Yes, you may do that," said he; "but there is no way
thither. It lies east of the sun and west of the moon, and
never would you find your way there."

When she awoke in the morning both the Prince and