"Oh, dear queen, what shall I do for you? I'll do anything you
wish."

"Money I do not wish for," said the queen, "but there's a little
plot of ground on the sea-cliff I want you to lend me, for I wish to
make a ring there, and the grass will die when I make the ring.
Then I want you to build three walls round the ring, but leave the
sea-side open, so that we may be able to come and go easily."

"With the greatest of pleasure," said the gentleman; and he built
the three stone walls at once, at the spot indicated.



II.

Near the gentleman lived the old witch, and she had the power of
turning at will into a hare. The gentleman was a great hare hunter,
but the hounds could never catch this hare; it always disappeared in
a mill, running between the wings and jumping in at an open window,
though they stationed two men and a dog at the spot, when it
immediately turned into the old witch. And the old miller never
suspected, for the old woman used to take him a peck of corn to
grind a few days before any hunt, telling him she would call for it
on the afternoon of the day of the hunt. So that when she arrived
she was expected.

One day she had been taunting the gentleman as he returned from a
hunt, that he could never catch the hare, and he struck her with his