` Thanks , ' said he , ` for this service , which has freed me from a spell that not even death itself could loosen . I am the dead man who lay unburied in the robber 's inn , where you ransomed me and gave me honourable burial , and therefore I have helped you in your journey . ' With this they parted and the prince , disguising himself as a horse-shoer , went up to his father 's palace and offered his services there . The king 's men told him that a horse-shoer was indeed wanted at the palace , but he must be one who could lift up the feet of the horse with the golden shoes , and such a one they had not yet been able to find . The prince asked to see the horse , and as soon as he entered the stable the steed began to neigh in a friendly fashion , and stood as quiet and still as a lamb while the prince lifted up his hoofs , one after the other , and showed the king 's men the famous golden shoes . After this the king 's men began to talk about the bird Grip , and how strange it was that he would not sing , however well he was attended to . The horse-shoer then said that he knew the bird very well ; he had seen it when it sat in its cage in another king 's palace , and if it did not sing now it must be because it did not have all that it wanted . He himself knew so much about the bird 's ways that if he only got to see it he could tell at once what it lacked . The king 's men now took counsel whether they ought to take the stranger in before the king , for in his chamber sat the bird Grip along with the weeping princess . It was decided to risk doing so , and the horse-shoer was led into the king 's chamber , where he had no sooner called the bird by its name than it began to sing and the princess to smile . Then the darkness cleared away from the king 's eyes , and the more the bird sang the more clearly did he see , till at last in the strange horse-shoer he recognised his youngest son . Then the princess told the king how treacherously his eldest sons had acted , and he had them banished from his kingdom ; but the youngest prince married the princess , and got the horse with the golden shoes and half the kingdom from his father , who kept for himself so long as he lived the bird Grip , which now sang with all its heart to the king and all his court . Snowflake Slavonic story . Contes Populaires Slaves , traduits par Louis Leger . Paris : Leroux , Editeur . Once upon a time there lived a peasant called Ivan , and he had a wife whose name was Marie . They would have been quite happy except for one thing : they had no children to play with , and as they were now old people they did not find that watching the children of their neighbours at all made up to them for having one of their own . One winter , which nobody living will ever forget , the snow lay so deep that it came up to the knees of even the tallest man . When it had all fallen , and the sun was shining again , the children ran out into the street to play , and the old man and his wife sat at their window and gazed at them . The children first made a sort of little terrace , and stamped it hard and firm , and then they began to make a snow woman .
Ivan and Marie watched them , the while thinking XXXXX many things .
After With about by from if into that to upon