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jewels. The first was a row of brooches of gold and silver, with their
pins fixed in the wall and their heads outwards; the second a row of
torques of gold and silver; and the third a row of great swords, with
hilts of gold and silver. And on many tables was food of all kinds,
and drinking horns filled with foaming ale.11
While the prince was looking about him the cats kept on jumping
from pillar to pillar; but seeing that none of them jumped on to the
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pillar in the centre of the room, he began to wonder why this was so,
when, all of a sudden, and before he could guess how it came about,
there right before him on the center pillar was the little white cat.
Don t you know me? said he.
I do, said the prince.
Ah, but you don t know who I am. This is the palace of the Little
White Cat, and I am the King of the Cats. But you must be hungry,
and the feast is spread.
Well, when the feast was ended, the King of the Cats called for the
sword that would kill the giant Trencoss, and the hundred cakes for
the hundred watch-dogs.
The cats brought the sword and the cakes and laid them before the
king.
Now, said the king, take these; you have no time to lose. To-
morrow the dwarfs will wind the last ball, and to-morrow the giant
will claim the princess for his bride. So you should go at once; but
before you go take this from me to your little girl.
And the king gave him a brooch lovelier than any on the palace
walls.
The king and the prince, followed by the cats, went down to the
strand, and when the prince stepped into the boat all the cats
mewed three times for good luck, and the prince waved his hat
three times, and the little boat sped over the waters all through the
night as brightly and as swiftly as a shooting star. In the first flush of
the morning it touched the strand. The prince jumped out and went
on and on, up hill and down dale, until he came to the giant s castle.
When the hounds saw him they barked furiously, and bounded
towards him to tear him to pieces. The prince flung the cakes to
them, and as each hound swallowed his cake he fell dead. The prince
then struck his shield three times with the sword which he had
brought from the palace of the little white cat.
When the giant heard the sound he cried out:
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Who comes to challenge me on my wedding-day?
The dwarfs went out to see, and, returning, told him it was a prince
who challenged him to battle.
The giant, foaming with rage, seized his heaviest iron club, and
rushed out to the fight. The fight lasted the whole day, and when the
sun went down the giant said:
We have had enough of fighting for the day. We can begin at
sunrise to-morrow.
Not so, said the prince. Now or never; win or die.
Then take this, cried the giant, as he aimed a blow with all his
force at the prince s head; but the prince, darting forward like a flash
of lightning, drove his sword into the giant s heart, and, with a
groan, he fell over the bodies of the poisoned hounds.
When the dwarfs saw the giant dead they began to cry and tear their
hair. But the prince told them they had nothing to fear, and he bade
them go and tell the Princess Eileen he wished to speak with her. But
the princess had watched the battle from her window, and when she
saw the giant fall she rushed out to greet the prince, and that very
night he and she and all the dwarfs and harpers set out for the Palace
of the Silver River, which they reached the next morning, and from
that day to this there never has been a gayer wedding than the
wedding of the Prince of the Silver River and the Princess Eileen;
and though she had diamonds and pearls to spare, the only jewel she
wore on her wedding-day was the brooch which the prince had
brought her from the Palace of the Little White Cat in the far-off seas.
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PRINCESS FINOLA AND THE DWARF
A long, long time ago there lived in a little hut in the midst of a bare,
brown, lonely moor an old woman and a young girl. The old woman
was withered, sour-tempered, and dumb. The young girl was as
sweet and as fresh as an opening rosebud, and her voice was as
musical as the whisper of a stream in the woods in the hot days of
summer. The little hut, made of branches woven closely together,
was shaped like a beehive. In the center of the hut a fire burned night
and day from year s end to year s end, though it was never touched
or tended by human hand. In the cold days and nights of winter it
gave out light and heat that made the hut cozy and warm, but in the
summer nights and days it gave out light only. With their heads to
the wall of the hut and their feet towards the fire were two sleeping-
couches one of plain woodwork, in which slept the old woman; the
other was Finola s. It was of bog-oak, polished as a looking-glass,
and on it were carved flowers and birds of all kinds, that gleamed
and shone in the light of the fire. This couch was fit for a princess,
and a princess Finola was, though she did not know it herself.
Outside the hut the bare, brown, lonely moor stretched for miles on
every side, but towards the east it was bounded by a range of
mountains that looked to Finola blue in the daytime, but which put
on a hundred changing colors as the sun went down. Nowhere was a
house to be seen, nor a tree, nor a flower, nor sign of any living
thing. From morning till night, nor hum of bee, nor song of bird, nor
voice of man, nor any sound fell on Finola s ear. When the storm was
in the air the great waves thundered on the shore beyond the
mountains, and the wind shouted in the glens; but when it sped
across the moor it lost its voice, and passed as silently as the dead. At
first the silence frightened Finola, but she got used to it after a time,
and often broke it by talking to herself and singing.
The only other person beside the old woman Finola ever saw was a
dumb dwarf who, mounted on a broken-down horse, came once a
month to the hut, bringing with him a sack of corn for the old
woman and Finola. Although he couldn t speak to her, Finola was
always glad to see the dwarf and his old horse, and she used to give
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them cake made with her own white hands. As for the dwarf he
would have died for the little princess, he was so much in love with
her, and often and often his heart was heavy and sad as he thought
of her pining away in the lonely moor.
It chanced that he came one day, and she did not, as usual, come out
to greet him. He made signs to the old woman, but she took up a
stick and struck him, and beat his horse and drove him away; but as
he was leaving he caught a glimpse of Finola at the door of the hut,
and saw that she was crying. This sight made him so very miserable
that he could think of nothing else but her sad face that he had
always seen so bright, and he allowed the old horse to go on without
minding where he was going. Suddenly he heard a voice saying: It
is time for you to come.
The dwarf looked, and right before him, at the foot of a green hill,
was a little man not half as big as himself, dressed in a green jacket
with brass buttons, and a red cap and tassel.
It is time for you to come, he said the second time; but you are
welcome, anyhow. Get off your horse and come in with me, that I
may touch your lips with the wand of speech, that we may have a
talk together.
The dwarf got off his horse and followed the little man through a
hole in the side of a green hill. The hole was so small that he had to
go on his hands and knees to pass through it, and when he was able
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