daughters, Ismené, Zelonide, and Marthesie. Prince Marcassin sees and falls in love with the eldest. She is attached and contracted to a young nobleman, named Coridon; but the mother, dazzled by the prospect of seeing her daughter the wife of the heir apparent, insists upon Ismené resigning Coridon, and accepting Prince Marcassin. The wedding takes place, and on the bridal night Marcassin sees Ismené and Coridon fall by their own hands. He has scarcely recovered from the shock of this catastrophe, when he falls in love with the second daughter, Zelonide, who is also compelled to marry him, but determines to destroy him by strangling him when he is asleep. He discovers her intention, and kills her with two blows of his terrific tusks. Disgusted with the world, and also with himself, he flies from the palace, and lives in the woods with other wild boars. One day he encounters by accident Marthesie, the third sister, and proposes to her. She is not so much startled by the offer as the reader may imagine; she asks only for time for consideration. Another meeting takes place, and she is persuaded to visit his cavern, under a promise to be allowed to leave it again, which he breaks, and makes her first his prisoner, and then his wife. After residing with him some time, she discovers that he has the power of divesting himself of his boar's skin; which she seizes and hides, to his great alarm, as he has received this benefit from the Fairies only on condition of inviolable secresy. Six distaffs, three with white silk and three with black, fall through the roof of the cavern, and commence dancing. This whimsical event is followed by a voice declaring that Marcassin and Marthesie shall be made happy, if they can guess what the distaffs signify. Marcassin guesses that the three white distaffs are the three Fairies, and Marthesie divines that the three black are her two sisters and Coridon. The conjectures prove correct—the transformations take place. The suicide of Ismené and her lover, and the murder of Zelonide, turn out to be merely delusions practised by the third Fairy upon Marcassin; who, restored to human shape of the most approved pattern, returns to polite society, in company of his third wife, Marthesie, and lives happy ever afterwards.
