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 108 "I intended to have you hanged for your disobedience, that the ravens might eat you," he said to Irik; "but since you have served me so well, I will only have you beheaded and decently buried."

After the execution, Zlatovlaska asked the old king for the dead body of Irik, and as the king could not very well refuse anything to his bride, he sent it to her. The princess joined the head to the trunk, sprinkled some of the water of death over them, and they immediately grew together so exactly that there was not even a mark left of the decapitation. Then she sprinkled the body with the water of life, and Irik got up as fresh as if he were newly born, and as hale as a deer; youth bloomed in his face.

"How soundly I have slept!" said Irik, rubbing his eyes.

"Yes," said the princess, "you have slept soundly. Had it not been for me, you would have slept long enough."

When the old king saw that Irik was alive, and had become younger and handsomer than before, he, too, wanted to be made young again. He immediately directed that the same should be done to him as had been done to Irik. Accordingly they beheaded him, and then sprinkled the body with the water of life over and over again, until there was no more left. But the head