THE PRINCESS'S RING

Once upon a time there were a king and a queen who had a very beautiful daughter. The daughter grew up and when the time came for her to marry the king had it proclaimed throughout the country that she would marry the man who could take the ring off her finger.

All the young men in the kingdom racked their brains trying to think of a way of doing it, but could think of nothing. What made it so hard was that the king never let his daughter out of his sight and clung to her like a burr to a sleeve.

One day a craftsman named Fedko came to see the king.

"Your Majesty, I think I can take the ring off the princess's finger." he said.

"Do it, and the princess is yours!" said the king.

Now, Fedko always worked together with his uncle, a craftsman like himself, so back he went to the village to see him.

"I wish you could think of a way of taking the ring off the princess's finger!" he said. "It is not easy, for the king keeps her under lock and key."

The uncle thought for a day, he thought for two days, and he thought for three days, and at last he said:

"We must make a clock as big as a cupboard. You will climb into it and play your pipe, and when the princess hears you she will be sure to come to see what the time is."

Fedko and his uncle set to work at once, and the clock was ready before the week was up. Fedko took his pipe and climbed into the clock, and his uncle locked it and rode off to sell it at a fair.

Now, the king and his daughter happened to be at the fair, and when the princess came up close, Fedko, who could see her through a crack in the case, began playing his pipe.

"What beautiful music! Do buy me this clock, Father" the princess said.

The king took out a bundle of money and bought the clock, and his servants took it to the palace and set it down in a corner of the princess's chamber.

So delighted was the princess with the clock that she sat before it for the rest of the day, and Fedko, who was inside never stopped playing his pipe. But when the princess went to bed, he climbed out, stole up to the sleeping girl, slipped the ring off her finger and then climbed back into the clock again.

On the next day Fedko again started playing his pipe, but he was far too hungry to play very long and soon stopped.

The princess ran to tell her father about it.

"Something is wrong with the clock, it doesn't play any more!" she cried.

"I'll have the man who made“it sent for, he will repair it," said the king.

The king's servants called Fedko's uncle. He came and took the clock to his house and let Fedko, who was faint with hunger by then, out of it. He then fixed the clock and so improved it that it would play a tune even when there was no one inside it.

One day the king noticed that the ring was gone from his daughter's finger and asked her what she had done with it.

"Nothing, Father, someone must have taken it," replied the princess.

The king was so surprised that he had his servants proclaim throughout the kingdom that the man who had taken the ring off the princess's finger was to come to the palace and marry her.

Fedko came to the palace, and he and the princess were married, and there was no end to the dancing and merrymaking.

The tale ends here, and the more fool he