He then begged her to leave the palace before the king returned . The queen now took her two little sons , and wandered out into the wild forest . They walked all day without ending a human habitation , and became very tired . The queen then caught sight of a man who carried some venison . He seemed very poor and wretched , but the queen was glad to see a human being , and asked him whether he knew where she and her little children could get a house over their heads for the night . The man answered that he had a little hut in the forest , and that she could rest there ; but he also said that he was one who lived entirely apart from men , and owned no more than the hut , a horse , and a dog , and supported himself by hunting . The queen followed him to the hut and rested there overnight with her children , and when she awoke in the morning the man had already gone out hunting . The queen then began to put the room in order and prepare food , so that when the man came home he found everything neat and tidy , and this seemed to give him some pleasure . He spoke but little , however , and all that he said about himself was that his name was Peter . Later in the day he rode out into the forest , and the queen thought that he looked very unhappy . While he was away she looked about her in the hut a little more closely , and found a tub full of shirts stained with blood , lying among water . She was surprised at this , but thought that the man would get the blood on his shirt when he was carrying home venison . She washed the shirts , and hung them up to dry , and said nothing to Peter about the matter . After some time had passed she noticed that every day he came riding home from the forest he took off a blood-stained shirt and put on a clean one . She then saw that it was something else than the blood of the deer that stained his shirts , so one day she took courage and asked him about it . At first he refused to tell her , but she then related to him her own story , and how she had succeeded in delivering the lindorm . He then told her that he had formerly lived a wild life , and had finally entered into a written contract * with the Evil Spirit . Before this contract had expired he had repented and turned from his evil ways , and withdrawn himself to this solitude . The Evil One had then lost all power to take him , but so long as he had the contract he could compel him to meet him in the forest each day at a certain time , where the evil spirits then scourged him till he bled . Next day , when the time came for the man to ride into the forest , the queen asked him to stay at home and look after the princes , and she would go to meet the evil spirits in his place .
The man was amazed , and said that this would not only cost her her life , but would also bring upon him a greater misfortune XXXXX the one he was already under .
After At about before for from than to whether without