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“What brings this bird of ill omen?” said the old man, and he drew his sword to kill it. He raised his hand to strike, but the raven did not try to fly away as he had expected, but bowed his neck to receive the stroke. Then the old man saw that the tears were running down from the raven’s eyes, and he held his hand. “What strange thing is this?” he said. “Surely nothing but the living soul weeps; and how, then, can this bird shed tears?” So he took the raven up and looked into his eyes, and in them he saw the prince’s soul. “Alas!” he cried, “my heart misgives me that something strange has happened. Tell me, is this not my foster-son, the prince?”

The raven answered “Croak!” and nothing else; but the good old man understood it all, and the tears ran down his cheeks and trickled over his beard. “Whether man or raven, you shall still be my son,” said he, and he held the raven close in his arms and caressed it.

He had a golden cage made for the bird, and every day he would walk with it in the garden, talking to it as a father talks to his son.

One day when they were thus in the garden together a strange lady came towards them down the pathway. Over her had and face was drawn a thick veil, so that the two could not tell who she was. When she came close to them she raised the veil, and the raven-prince saw that her face was the living likeness of the queen’s; and yet there was something in it that was different. It was the second sister of the queen, and the old man knew her and bowed before her.

“Listen,” said she. “I know what the raven is, and that it is the prince, whom the queen has bewitched. I also know nearly as much of magic as she, and it is that alone that has saved me so long from ill. But danger hangs close over me; the queen only waits for the chance to bewitch me; and some day she will overpower me, for she is stronger than I. With the prince’s aid I can overcome her and make myself forever safe, and it is this that has brought me here to-day. My magic is powerful enough to change the prince back into his true shape again, and I will do so if he will aid me in what follows, and this is it: I will conjure the queen, and by-and-by a great eagle will come flying, and its plumage will be as black as night. Then I myself will become an eagle, with black-and-white plumage, and we two will fight in the air. After a while we will both fall to the ground, and then the prince must cut off the head of the black eagle with a knife I shall give him. Will you do this?” said she, turning to the raven, “if I transform you to your true shape?”

The raven bowed his head and said “Croak!” And the sister of the queen knew that he meant yes.

Therewith she drew a great, long keen knife from her bosom, and thrust it into the ground. “It is with this knife of magic,” said she, “that you must cut off the black eagle’s head.” Then the witch-princess gathered up some sand in her hand, and flung it into the raven’s face. “Resume,” cried she, “your own shape!” And in an instant the prince was himself again. The next thing the sister of the queen did was to draw a circle upon the ground around the prince, the old man, and herself. On the circle she marked strange figures here and there. Then, all three standing close together, she began her conjurations, uttering strange words–now under her breath, and now clear and loud.