The King 's son , however , hardly ever stopped crying from the time he had been taken from his mother on the deck of the ship , although he had always been such a good child before , so that at last the King had to get a nurse for him -- one of the maids of the Court . As soon as the child got into her charge he stopped crying , and behaved well as before . After the sea-voyage it seemed to the King that the Queen had altered very much in many ways , and not for the better . He thought her much more haughty and stubborn and difficult to deal with than she used to be . Before long others began to notice this as well as the King . In the Court there were two young fellows , one of eighteen years old , the other of nineteen , who were very fond of playing chess , and often sat long inside playing at it . Their room was next the Queen 's , and often during the day they heard the Queen talking . One day they paid more attention than usual when they heard her talk , and put their ears close to a crack in the wall between the rooms , and heard the Queen say quite plainly , ` When I yawn a little , then I am a nice little maiden ; when I yawn half-way , then I am half a troll ; and when I yawn fully , then I am a troll altogether . ' As she said this she yawned tremendously , and in a moment had put on the appearance of a fearfully ugly troll . Then there came up through the floor of the room a three-headed Giant with a trough full of meat , who saluted her as his sister and set down the trough before her . She began to eat out of it , and never stopped till she had finished it . The young fellows saw all this going on , but did not hear the two of them say anything to each other . They were astonished though at how greedily the Queen devoured the meat , and how much she ate of it , and were no longer surprised that she took so little when she sat at table with the King . As soon as she had finished it the Giant disappeared with the trough by the same way as he had come , and the Queen returned to her human shape . Now we must go back to the King 's son after he had been put in charge of the nurse . One evening , after she had lit a candle and was holding the child , several planks sprang up in the floor of the room , and out at the opening came a beautiful woman dressed in white , with an iron belt round her waist , to which was fastened an iron chain that went down into the ground . The woman came up to the nurse , took the child from her , and pressed it to her breast ; then she gave it back to the nurse and returned by the same way as she had come , and the floor closed over her again . Although the woman had not spoken a single word to her , the nurse was very much frightened , but told no one about it . Next evening the same thing happened again , just as before , but as the woman was going away she said in a sad tone , ` Two are gone , and one only is left , ' and then disappeared as before . The nurse was still more frightened when she heard the woman say this , and thought that perhaps some danger was hanging over the child , though she had no ill-opinion of the unknown woman , who , indeed , had behaved towards the child as if it were her own .
The most mysterious thing was the woman saying ` and only one is left ; ' but the nurse guessed that this must mean that only one day was left , since she had come XXXXX two days already .
After Although about at for from in over than through