and rewarded with half the kingdom.

One day, soon after his marriage, the prince was walking through
the woods in the evening, followed by his faithful beasts.
Darkness came on, and he lost his way, and wandered about among
the trees looking for the path that would lead him back to the
palace. As he walked he saw the light of a fire, and making his
way to it he found an old woman raking sticks and dried leaves
together, and burning them in a glade of the wood.

As he was very tired, and the night was very dark, the prince
determined not to wander further. So he asked the old woman if
he might spend the night beside her fire.

'Of course you may,' she answered. 'But I am afraid of your
beasts. Let me hit them with my rod, and then I shall not be
afraid of them.'

'Very well,' said the prince, 'I don't mind'; and she stretched
out her rod and hit the beasts, and in one moment they were
turned into stone, and so was the prince.

Now soon after this the prince's youngest brother came to the
cross-roads with the three birches, where the brothers had parted
from each other when they set out on their wanderings.
Remembering what they had agreed to do, he walked round the two
trees, and when he saw that blood oozed from the cut in the
eldest prince's tree he knew that his brother must be dead. So
he set out, followed by his beasts, and came to the town over
which his brother had ruled, and where the princess he had