themselves, and asked about her husband. And the wife of the
White Bear forgot the warning, and told her mother that every
night a man came and lay down with her, and went away before
daylight, and that she had never seen him, and wanted to see
him, very much. Then the mother said it might be a Troll she
slept with; and that she ought to see what it was; and she gave
her daughter a piece of candle, and said, "Light this while he
is asleep, and look at him, but take care you don't drop the
tallow upon him." So then the White Bear came to fetch his wife,
and they went back to the palace in the hill, and that night she
lit the candle, while her husband was asleep, and then she saw
that he was a handsome Prince, and she felt quite in love with
him, and gave him a soft kiss. But just as she kissed him she
let three drops of tallow fall upon his shirt, and he woke up.
Then the White Bear was very sorrowful, and said that he was
enchanted by a wicked fairy, and that if his wife had only
waited for a year before looking at him, the enchantment would
be broken, and he would be a man again always. But now that she
had given way to curiosity, he must go to a dreary castle East
of the Sun and West of the Moon, and marry a witch Princess,
with a nose three ells long. And then he vanished, and so did
his palace, and his poor wife found herself lying in the middle
of a gloomy wood, and she was dressed in rags, and was very
wretched. But she did not stop to cry about her hard fate, for
she was a brave girl, and made up her mind to go at once in
search of her husband. So she walked for days, and then she met
an old woman sitting on a hillside, and playing with a golden
apple; and she asked the old woman the way to the Land East of
the Sun and West of the Moon. And the old woman listened to her
story, and then she said, "I don't know where it is; but you can