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Tale Summary

There was once a soldier who was returning home from war, who met an old witch on the road. She said he deserved riches, and pointed him to a hollow tree which he could let himself down into by climbing to the top, using a rope she would hold onto. At the bottom would be a large hall with three doors with their keys in the locks. She would give him her apron, because in the first room was a chest with a large-eyed dog on top, and he should place it on the apron so he could take all the copper money he would like. In the second room would be a dog with even rounder eyes, but he could take care of him in the same way and take silver. The third room had gold and a dog with even larger eyes, which would calm once on the apron. In return, the witch only asked him to bring an old tinder-box which her grandmother had forgotten there. He followed her instructions in each room, and came up laden with gold, but would not give her the tinder-box until she told him its value, and cut off her head when she would not speak. The soldier then went to a splendid town and got the finest clothes, and was told that the King had a beautiful daughter but that no one could see her, for she was in a great copper castle, kept there because of a prophecy that she would marry a common soldier. He became a great lord and took care of those in need, but at last he ran out of money and had to move into an attic where none of his friends visited. He could not even afford a light, so one night he tried kindling a light with the tinder-box, but as soon as it sparked the copper-guarding dog appeared and asked what his bidding was. He asked for money, and the dog soon reappeared with a purse, and soon the soldier was rich again. If he rubbed the tinder-box once, the copper-guarding dog came, if he rubbed twice, the silver-guarding dog would come, and three times meant the gold-guarding dog would appear. He had one of the dogs fetch the princess one night and kissed her while she was sleeping before she was returned to the castle. When she awoke, she told her parents about what a strange dream she had about the soldier, and so a lady-in-waiting was made to keep watch the next night, and sure enough the dog returned and took her to the soldier’s house. The lady followed and made a cross on his door to mark it, but the clever soldier drew the same cross on every other house so that the King and Queen were confused. The next night, the Queen tied a sack of buckwheat with a little hole to the princess’s neck, and on her way to the soldier it left a clear trail and the next day he was arrested and sentenced to a hanging. The soldier promised four shillings to a shoemaker’s apprentice to fetch his tinderbox, which he had left at home, and before he was to be hanged he earnestly asked if he could smoke one last pipe of tobacco, which the King could not refuse. The soldier rubbed the box once, twice, and three times so that all three dogs appeared, and he asked them to help him not be hanged. The dogs fell upon the council and the King and Queen, throwing them high in the air so that they were smashed to pieces when they came back down. The soldiers, afraid, said he would be King and marry the Princess, and so the two were happy and had a wonderful wedding feast.

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