the high moss. He was near falling from fatigue, when he heard a strange humming noise; and before him he saw a large illumined cavern. In the middle of it burned a fire, at which a buck might have been roasted whole. And it was the case too;—a very fine buck, with zig-zag antlers, was stuck on the spit, and turned slowly between two enormous pine-trees. An elderly woman, tall and strong, as though she were a man in disguise, sat by the fire, and threw in one piece of wood after another.
“Come, come nearer,” said she, seeing the Prince; “seat yourself by the fire, and dry your clothes.”
“There’s a terrible draught here,” said the Prince, and he sat down on the floor of the cave.
“That will be still worse when my sons come home,” said the woman. “You are in the Cavern of the Winds; my sons are the Four Winds of the world. Do you understand me?”
