After supper, accordingly, she put the serpent's request to the forester.

'Our serpent wants to get married, Cola,' she said; 'so you must find him a wife.'

'Very well,' said Matteo. 'I will hunt through the forest when I am out, and try and find another serpent for him to mate with.'

'Oh, that will not do at all,' said the serpent, who had been listening very intently to its adopted parents' conversation, though[Pg 34] it seemed to be sleeping peacefully all over the floor in front of the fire. 'I do not mate with serpents. You must get the King's daughter for me. To-morrow you must set out to the palace, and tell the King that I require his daughter in marriage.'

Naturally Matteo did not at all care about his errand; but his wife entreated him to go, and so on the morrow the good man set forth, the serpent watching him depart from the cottage door, chanting all the while:

Well, Matteo walked along through the forest on his way to the King's palace, and the nearer he got to his journey's end the more difficult and dangerous his errand seemed to grow. He thought the King would be sure to be very angry, and he might even order him to be hanged for a knave, or beaten off the palace grounds for a fool.

But he kept thinking of what the serpent had said, and, as good fortune dwelling upon us is something we all like to have, the forester kept on his way and resolved faithfully to carry out his errand.

He came at last to the palace gates, and as, in those days, in that country, any one who wanted to could walk in and spe