Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/544

502 but her husband had told the princess that, if she were forced to reveal him, she must get her mother to make her three iron dresses and three pairs of iron boots, and that, wearing these, she must go in quest of him. So this was done, and the princess went forth to seek him. After a year the first iron dress and the first pair of iron boots were worn out, and after a second year the second ones, and the third year was running to its close—three days only remained—and she was still wandering. There on the road she met an old man, and she asked him: "What is that castle?" "In that castle," said the old man, "live ten ogres and a youth, and when they sit and feast and say, 'To your health,' he says: 'To my wife, and if she had had more sense she would not have lost me. She went on to the castle and entered it, and found the ogres out and the rooms unswept, and she went to work and swept them. When she heard the ogres coming, she hid herself, and when the time came for toasts she heard the ogres say: "To your health," and she heard her husband answer: "To the health of my wife, and if she had had more sense she would not have lost me." When she heard this, she ran out and kissed her husband. The ogres wanted to eat her, but he said: "This is my wife."

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