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No sooner had she done so than her feet took deep root in the earth, her hair stiffened into fir-needles, and her arms became branches. She was now firmly fixed in the centre of the group of stones, a slender, swaying pine-tree, which creaked and croaked, and snapped and snarled with every gust of wind, as the princess had hardly ever done in her most ill-tempered moments. And as her limbs stiffened under their magical transformation, the hideous figure of the wood-wife might have been seen hovering round the charmed circle, her arms half changed into bird’s wings, and her hands into claws. And as the king’s daughter fairly turned into a pine-tree, the wood-wife took the form of an owl, and for a moment rested triumphantly on her branches. Then with a shrill “Tu-whit! tu-whoo!” it vanished into the forest.

When the princess did not return to the palace, and all search after her proved utterly vain, the poor old king fell into a state of the deepest melancholy, and spent most of his time in the summer-house, bewailing the mysterious loss of his only child.

One day, many months afterwards, he wandered into the forest. A storm was raging, of which he took no heed. But suddenly he stopped beneath a pine-tree, and looked up–“How like my poor dear daughter’s voice!” said he; “especially when she was the least bit in the world–” He did not like to finish the sentence, but sat down under the tree and wept bitterly. And for every tear he shed, the pine-tree dropped a shower of needles. For the Snarling Princess recognized her father, and heartily lamented the pain he suffered now, and had so often suffered before on her account.

“Tu-whit! tu-whoo!” said a voice, from a hole beneath the pine-tree.

“Who speaks?” said the king.

“It is I, cousin,” said the owl, hopping into the daylight, and gradually assuming the form and features of the fairy godmother. “You did not know me as the Three-legged Wood-wife, whom you so unjustly sacrificed to your daughter’s caprices. But I have had a hand in her education after all! For twelve months has she croaked and creaked, snapped and snarled, beneath the summer heat, the winter snow, and the storms of spring and autumn. Her punishment–and yours–is over.”

As the fairy godmother spoke, the pine-tree became a princess once more, and fell into her father’s arms.

But the wood-wife took again the shape of an owl, and the enchanted stones became bats, and they all disappeared into the shadows of the forest.

And as the princess shortly afterwards married a very charming prince, she no doubt changed her name.

Certainly she was never more known as the Snarling Princess.