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 ‘No,’ said he. ‘ What can it be? My dead cousin was there, and an Old Man with a beard came and showed me a lot of gold. But what shuddering is, that no man can tell me.’

Then said the King: ‘You have broken the spell on the castle, and you shall marry my daughter.’

‘That is all very well,’ he said; ‘but still I don’t know what shuddering is.’

The gold was got out of the castle, and the marriage was celebrated, but, happy as the young King was, and much as he loved his wife, he was always saying: ‘Oh, if only I could learn to shudder, if only I could learn to shudder.’

At last his wife was vexed by it, and her waiting-woman said: ‘I can help you; he shall be taught the meaning of shuddering.’

And she went out to the brook which ran through the garden and got a pail full of cold water and little fishes.

At night, when the young King was asleep, his wife took the coverings off and poured the cold water over him, and all the little fishes flopped about him.

Then he woke up, and cried: ‘Oh, how I am shuddering, dear wife, how I am shuddering! Now I know what shuddering is!’