Once upon a time there lived a king and a queen. Every single day, the queen went to a large forest to pray.

One day, an old woman came up to her and asked, "What brings you here?"

"Oh, sweet woman, I am willing to tell you, but you will not be able to help me. I have been married for so long now and I would very much like to have a baby boy."

"Well," said the old woman, "things are not so bad. I think I will be able to help you. Here you have a little bean. Make sure you plant it in a flowerpot in your house and return to this place to pray every day."

And so the queen did. Little less than a year later, she had a beautiful, sweet baby boy.

"But," the old woman in the forest said the last time she came there, "never must you allow the child to walk outside on his own. It is best to keep him inside the house at all times. Because if he walks outside without you, some great harm will be done to him. You must keep him with you until he is twelve years old."

The queen took very good care of her son until he was as old as eleven years. At that time, the king gave a large hunting party for the young noblemen in the neighbourhood.

These gentlemen were very anxious to take along the young prince on their hunt. They begged for so long and promised to take care of him so well that the king said, "Well, things have been going so well for such a long time that I expect them to go equally well from now on. Take him along with you, but be careful with him."

The young prince shot a large deer himself, but did not kill it immediately. The deer ran into the forest. The prince went after it, but the chase took so long that evening had fallen when the prince discovered that he was lost in a large forest. The deer had disappeared into the bushes and the prince stood there alone. He climbed a hill with a large tree on it, but since he had never learned to climb trees, he used the height of the hill to take as good a look around as possible. In the distance he saw a light coming from a small house, which he approached.

An old woman answered his knocking on the door, and when he had told her everything, she said, "Do come in. You are allowed to spend the night here, if you are prepared to run an errand for me tomorrow."

The prince said very cheerfully, "I'd be delighted to."

He thought he might have to go into town to get some stocking wool or other such things. But oh dear, he couldn't have been more wrong. In the hut, there were also three blonde girls, who called the old woman "mother." The oldest girl was very friendly to the prince and helped him with everything, took him some hot milk, and helped him upstairs to his little room, where he slept comfortably the whole night through. The prince was in a good mood. This sweet girl, he thought, will surely show me the way out of the forest.

The old woman appeared and said, "Well, here's the errand. Here you've got a small wooden axe. I will go to the forest with you. You will have to chop down the entire forest today, and if you won't finish it today, I will cut your head off."

The prince thought, my head will surely come off then, for I do not even know how to chop, let alone with a wooden axe.

When the old woman had left, he started weeping from fear and shock.

In the afternoon, the sweet girl came to bring him some food and said, "You'll be tired enough as it is from yesterday's walking. Just go and have a lie down, and I will wake you up in time."

The girl had secretly taken the old woman's magic wand – the old woman actually being an old hag – and used it to make all the trees fall down, except one.

"There you are," she said when she woke up the prince, "now make sure you chop away on that one tree when the hag comes around tonight to check your work. She kidnapped all three of us, and we don't have the courage to run away."

When the girl returned home in the evening, the old hag went to the forest and took her along.

She then said to the prince, "You have been very diligent indeed. You are now allowed to marry this sweet girl. You must now use this wood to build a large house for the both of you to live in."

"Oh," said the prince, "I'm not capable of doing that."

"Well, you'd better make sure to find a way to do it; after all, you have also done a neat job chopping the wood. And if you can't do it, I suppose your head will have to come off anyway."

The girl nudged him behind the hag's back. "Just you wait," she whispered, "I still have the magic wand. I will help you."

And indeed, the next day the entire house was finished, complete with doors and windows, cupboards and closets, tables and chairs, and curtains for the beds. The day after, they got married. All of a sudden, they heard someone calling, and recognized the hag's voice.

She called out: "Are you asleep already?"

"No, not yet!"

The hag waited a while until they would be asleep, but the girl said, "Let's get dressed silently."

They knotted the bed curtains together and tied them to the knob of the window. They then lowered themselves out the window by the curtains and ran off as fast as they could.

Once more the hag called out, "Are you asleep already?"

And when she heard no reply, she went in and cut crosswise through the bed with a large knife. If they had still been lying in it, they would have been slaughtered and killed. The following day, the hag went to the new house and saw, arriving at the cupboard bedstead, that they had already left it and that she had only slashed the blankets. This made her furious.

Back home, the hag told her husband, "You are a fast walker, go and get them back quickly."

The husband went after them. Just when he thought he saw something in the distance, they both noticed him. The girl rapidly transformed both of them into flowers by a tap with the magic wand. The hag's husband was just about to grab hold of them when he saw that he had definitely made a mistake, because he had only seen some flowers. He went home and told all of this to his wife.

The hag said, "If only you had picked those flowers; it was them! Go back quickly and bring along everything you see which you think could be them, because it will be them."

The husband walked as fast as he could (because this man had also been kidnapped and was equally frightened of her). But the flowers were gone and he no longer saw them. Finally he thought he saw them.

But the girl saw him too and turned herself into a church with a pulpit. She told the prince, "I will change you into a minister. Make sure you do a good job preaching on the pulpit."

"Oh," said the prince, "I don't know how to preach; what must I say?"

All of a sudden, the man saw that he had not seen things properly – that the thing he had seen was a church.

He went inside the church and heard the clergyman say three times, "It will be Sunday tomorrow!"

Well, the man thought, that is some minister. I could preach the way he does. Does he think I don't know that myself? He slammed the church door behind him and went home to tell the hag everything.

"Oh," said the hag, "you are a fool, you are good for nothing; that was them!"

The man said: "You can hardly expect me to bring along this entire church."

"All right," said the hag, "just you be careful I won't transform you into a church. I'll go after them myself. Then you'll see how soon I can lay my hands on them."

She did not give herself time to tighten her hat or look for her magic wand. Instead, she rushed out of the house and into the forest, just like that. A long way from home, she arrived at a lake. The girl had seen her coming and had changed herself into a lake and the prince into a duckling.

She told the prince, "Now make sure you stay right in the middle, and no matter how hard she tries to lure you, don't go ashore, because then we'll be lost. I am now much more frightened than when the man came."

When the hag arrived at the water, the duckling stayed nicely in the middle, and no matter how many pieces of bread she threw to entice the little animal, it did not come. Just you wait, she thought, you won't fool me. I know it is you. Upon my word, I am tired and hot from walking and I am very thirsty. Then she began to drink the water, she sighed and groaned, but kept drinking. She could hardly breathe ... but still she continued drinking. She had nearly finished it all; the duckling was swimming around in a very small puddle indeed.

When the hag felt she could drink no more, and that she would soon burst, she called out, "Just you come here, this is the end of me. Look, I am bursting and dying. Take this little box; it may come in handy some day."

And then she was dead. The prince and the girl walked for a very long time, until they arrived at the king's palace.

Before they arrived there, the girl said to the prince, "You must not let anybody kiss you, because then you would no longer recognize me. After all, I am your wife and would like to keep it that way after all we've been through."

"No," said the prince, "I will take good care of that."

She said, "And I will make sure I'll find a position as a servant. You just stay with your dad, and we'll be able to see each other every now and then. But don't tell them you are married to a maid."

The girl hired herself out to a miller and the prince arrived at the palace. When he came there, everybody started to kiss him and embrace him and there was joy all over now that the prince had returned. The following day, the queen gave a very large feast in honour of the prince. The entire neighbourhood was invited, because everyone, both rich and poor, had assisted in the search when the prince had disappeared during the hunt. The miller also prepared for the feast and got dressed in his best suit.

The girl said to him, "I wouldn't mind coming along."

"I'm sure you wouldn't," said the miller, "but you can't."

"Please, I am so looking forward to it."

"I am sure you are, but you don't have any pretty clothes and you can't possibly go in these working clothes."

"Just you wait," she said, "I do have pretty clothes."

Back in her small room, she tapped on the little box with her magic wand and behold! A magnificent gown issued from it.

At the feast, she was much better dressed than the queen and she herself was a ravishingly beautiful girl.

The queen asked her if she could have the gown. She then said, "Yes you can, provided I can spend one night here in the palace."

"Of course you can," said the queen.

So when all was quiet, she went to the prince, but he did not remember her, nor did he recognize her, because he had allowed his mother and all his aunts to kiss him.

"But oh," she exclaimed, "I am your sweet wife. Surely you must remember me?"

In the morning, the girl returned to the miller. That evening, there would be another large feast, and the miller would go there again too.

The girl said, "I would love to come along once more."

"I'm sure you would, but you've lost your gown now. What can you do?"

"Well," said the girl, "that is no impediment."

She now appeared at the feast in an even more beautiful gown. The queen was enraptured. "Oh," she said, "do give me that!"

"All right," the girl said, "provided I can stay here again tonight."

"Sure," said the queen, "the presence of a lady with such good taste is highly encouraged in our court."

The girl went to the prince and talked to him. He was beginning to pay more attention now. The old king was hiding in the closet, because the courtiers had informed him that their guest went to see the prince. In this way, the king heard everything they were discussing.

"Oh," said the girl, "don't you remember anything of all the things that went on in the forest, and of how I helped you and how this hag kept trying to catch us until all this water made her burst?"

"Yes," said the prince, "I remember everything now, and how good and sweet you've been to me, and how much we all owe you. But what should I tell my father?"

"Well," said the girl, "tell your daddy that you have two rings. One of loveliness and one of unloveliness; which one shall I dispose of? You'd better do as your father tells you."

The king in the closet found it very sweet of the girl to teach and tell the prince to obey his father. When the prince was asleep, the king silently got out of the closet. The following morning, the prince told him everything.

The king said, "You must dispose of the ring of unloveliness and retain the other one. That will surely make us all happy. I heard everything last night and we will all love your wife very much."

The king told the queen, and they had six horses harnessed to a carriage to fetch the miller's maid, who rapidly issued another magnificent gown from the hag's box before she got on the carriage. That very same day, they got married solemnly at the town hall and in the church, and in the evening, there was a great ball and they all lived happily ever after.