The Two Princesses

Wife, did you do this?"

"No," she said, "I don't know who can have done all this."

"Someone also has been cooking the rice," continued the Ogre. "Wife, did you cook the rice?"

"No," she answered. "I did not do it. I don't know who did."

Then the Ogre walked around and around several times with his nose up in the air, saying, "Someone is here now. I smell human flesh and blood! Where can they be?"

"Stuff and nonsense," said the wife. "You smell flesh and blood, indeed! Why, with all the humans you killed only this morning, I should wonder if you didn't still smell flesh and blood!"

They went on quarreling this way until the Ogre said, "Well, never mind, I don't know how it is, but I'm very thirsty. Let's go outside and drink some water."

So both the Ogre and his wife went to a well close to the house, and begin letting down jars into it, and drawing up the water, and drinking it. And the princesses, who were on the top of the house, saw them. Now the younger of the two princesses was a very clever girl, and when she saw the Ogre and his wife by the well, she said to her sister, "I will do something now that will be good for us and good for everyone." Running down quickly from the top of the house, she crept close behind the Ogre and his wife as they stood on top-toe more than half over the side of the well, and, catching hold of one of the Ogre's heels with one hand with one of his wife's with the other, gave each a mighty push, and down they both tumbled into the well and were drowned, the Ogre and the Ogre's wife!

The princess then returned to her sister and said, "I killed the Ogres."

"What, both of them?" cried her sister.

"Yes, both," she said.

"Won't they come back?" said her sister.

"Never," answered she.

So the two princesses took possession of the house, and lived there very happily for a long time.