"Hui! hui! but I am hungry!" said the old woman.
Now the Prince was a good-hearted fellow, so he said to the old woman,
"It is little I have, but such as it is you are welcome to it."
Thereupon he gave the old woman the lump of brown bread and the cold
sausage that was in his wallet, and the old woman ate it up at a bite.
"Hui! hui! but I am cold!" said she.
"It is little that I have, but such as it is you are welcome to it,"
said the Prince, and he gave the old woman the dusty coat off his back.
After that he had nothing more to give her.
[Illustration: Ye King Prince John]
"One does not give something for nothing," said the old woman, so she
began fumbling about in her pocket until she found an old rusty key. And
the best part of the key was, that whenever one looked through the ring
of it, one saw everything just as it really was and not as it seemed to
be.
Who would not give his dinner and the coat off his back for such a key?
After that the Prince stepped out again, right foot foremost, tramp!
tramp! tramp! until evening had come, and he felt as hungry as one is
like to do when one goes without one's dinner. At last he came to a dark
forest, and to a gray castle that stood just in the middle of it. This
castle belonged to a great, ugly troll, though the Prince knew nothing
of that.
"Now I shall have something to eat," said he, and he opened the door of
the castle and went in.
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