There they saw a little grey Man sitting at a table. They called to him once—twice—but he did not hear them. Finally, when they had called him the third time, he stood up and opened the door, and came out. He said not a word, but led them to a richly-spread table, and when they had eaten and drunk, he took them each to a bedroom.
The next morning the little grey Man came to the eldest Prince, beckoned, and led him to a stone tablet whereon were inscribed three tasks by means of which the castle should be freed from enchantment.
This was the first task: In the wood, under the moss, lay the Princesses’ pearls, a thousand in number. These had all to be found, and if at sunset a single one were missing, the seeker was turned to stone.
The eldest went away, and searched all day, but when evening came, he had only found the first hundred, and it happened as the inscription foretold. He was turned to stone.
The next day the second Brother undertook the quest; but he fared no better than the first, for he only found two hundred pearls, and he too was turned to stone.
At last came the Blockhead’s turn; he searched in the moss, but the pearls were hard to find, and he got on but slowly.
Then he sat down on a rock and cried, and as he was sitting there, the Ant-King, whose life he had saved, came up with five thousand ants, and it was not long before the little creatures had found all the pearls and laid them in a heap.
Now the second task was to get the key of the Princesses’ room out of the lake.
When the Blockhead came to the lake, the ducks he had once saved, swam up, dived, and brought up the key from the depths.
But the third task was the hardest. The Prince had to find out which was the youngest and most charming of the Princesses while they were asleep.
They were exactly alike, and could not be distinguished in any way, except that before going to sleep each had eaten a