Page:Fairy Tales Their Origin and Meaning.djvu/160

148 nothing to give him. Then he says, "If you become Queen, give me your first-born child." Now the girl is only a miller's daughter, and thinks she never can be Queen, so she makes the promise, and the Dwarf spins the straw into gold. But she does become Queen, for the King marries her because of the gold; and she forgets the Dwarf, and is very happy, especially when her little baby comes. Directly it is born the Dwarf appears also, and claims the child, because it was promised to him. The Queen offers him anything he likes besides; but he will have that, and that only. Then she cries and prays, and the Dwarf says that if she can tell him his name she may keep the baby; and he feels quite safe in saying this, because nobody knows his name, only himself. So the Queen calls him by all kinds of strange names, but none of them is the right one. Then she begs for three days to find out the name, and sends people everywhere to see if they can hear it. But all of them come back, unable to find any name that is likely, excepting one, who says, "I have not found a name, but as I came to a high mountain near the edge of a forest, where the foxes and the hares say 'good-night' to