crafts of GOLD

   This is history traded for less than nothing so think twice before coming into contact.

The wolf left him before he returned to his father's kingdom. Hisbrothers found him and killed him, taking the golden bird and thegolden horse, but the mermaid would not leave him. Weeks later, thewolf found her, and told her to cover his body with leaves and flowers.Then the wolf breathed on him, and the prince was no longer dead butsleeping. The mermaid woke him, and they went on. The king heard histale and summoned his brothers, who were so startled to see him thatthey could not think of a lie and told the truth. The king banishedthem, and the prince and mermaid married.

They went back to the emperor, who realized that magic was involved.He gave over all rights to the mermaid and gave the prince the horse aswell. The mermaid rode the horse and the prince the wolf back to theother emperor. This emperor was also impressed and gave him the goldenbird.

The wolf turned itself into a ship full of goods. The prince gotaboard and sailed; when the mermaid saw it, it tried to lure him, butat the wolf's orders, the prince said that the buyer must come to theseller. She came on board, and the prince seized her.

The prince and the wolf went, and the wolf bewitched the guards. Theprince went after the horse, but a gadfly stung it, and it touched thewalls. The prince was again sentenced to death, but the wolf againbecame a king and persuaded the emperor to send him after something.The emperor sent him after the golden mermaid.

He met a wolf and offered it his horse. The wolf ate it, offered tobe his steed, and told him that the apples were stolen by a golden birdbelonging to an emperor. It bewitched the guards and warned him to,while stealing it, not touch the walls, but the prince failed, and wascaptured and sentenced to death. The wolf magically itself into a king and visited the emperor. He suggested that becausethe prince was not a bold robber but a miserable thing, he could sethim to perform a bold feat for him. The emperor decided to send himafter a golden horse belonging to a neighboring emperor.

A king's were stolen every year. He sent his older two sons out to find the thief. The begged to go too, but he had always been thought a fool, so the kingwas reluctant. In time, he agreed, but gave him the worst horse.

The Golden Mermaid is a German fairy tale. Andrew Lang included it in The Green Fairy Book, attributing it to the Brothers Grimm