"Do you dislike her, then?" asked the king.
"Not in the least," answered the youngest prince. "My brothers want her for a wife."
"And you, too, I suppose," said the king smiling.
"I shall die if she does not become mine," answered the prince.
"Then you all three want her for a wife?"
"Yes, yes!" cried the princes together.
The king reflected for a moment, then he said,—
"Hear me, my sons, you cannot all three marry Libena. Go, therefore, all of you, into the world, and he among you who brings home the most wonderful thing, shall become the husband of Libena. Does that please you?"
"Yes, yes!" answered the princes.
They soon set out together on their travels. They journeyed for three days, but they could find nothing remarkable.
"This will not do," said the eldest brother, at the inn where they stopped for the night. "We must part; then perhaps we shall meet with better fortune."
The two younger brothers agreed to this suggestion, and soon afterwards they started, each on a different route, after promising to come again, and to wait for each other, at the same inn, before returning home.
The eldest prince pursued the road leading to the
