Page:Grimm's Fairy Tales.djvu/55

Rh our own skill and strength." Then there was great merriment made, and the king held a feast, and the two brothers were welcomed home; but the horse would not eat, the bird would not sing, and the princess sat by herself in her chamber, and wept bitterly.

The youngest son fell to the bottom of the bed of the stream. Luckily, it was nearly dry, but his bones were almost broken, and the bank was so steep that he could find no way to get out. As he stood bewailing his fate, and thinking what he should do, to his great joy he spied his old and faithful friend the fox, looking down from the bank upon him. Then Reynard scolded him for not following his advice, which would have saved him from all the troubles that had befallen him. "Yet," said he, "silly as you have been, I cannot bear to leave you here; so lay hold of my brush, and hold fast!" Then he pulled him out of the river, and said to him, as he got upon the bank, "Your brothers have set a watch to kill you if they find you making your way back." So he dressed himself as a poor piper, and came playing on his pipe to the king's court. But he was scarcely within the gate when the horse began to eat, and the bird to sing, and the princess left off weeping. And when he got to the great hall, where all the court sat feasting, he went straight up to the king, and told him all his brothers' roguery. Then it made the king very angry to hear what they had done, and they were seized and punished; and the youngest son had the princess given to him again; and he married her; and after the king's death he was chosen king in his stead.

After his marriage he went one day to walk in the wood, and there the old fox met him once more, and besought him, with tears in his eyes, to be so kind as to cut off his head and his brush. At last he did so,