Princess Sidigunda lived with her parents in a beautiful old castle by the sea. It was so near that the royal gardens sloped down gradually to the shore, and from its battlements where the little Princess was allowed to walk sometimes on half-holidays she could watch the ships with their gaily-painted prows and golden dragons’ heads, sweeping over the water in quest of new lands and fresh adventures.

Princess Sidigunda was an only child, and at her christening every gift you can imagine had been showered upon her.

The Trolls of the Woods gave her beauty; the Trolls of the Water, a free, bright spirit; the Mountain-Trolls, good health; and last, but not least, her chief Godfather, the Troll of the Seashore, had given her a beautiful little pair of golden slippers.

“Never let the child take them off her feet,” said the old Troll. “As long as she keeps them she will be happy. If ever they are lost the Princess’s troubles will begin.”

“But they will grow too small for her!” said the Queen anxiously.

“Oh no, they won’t!” said the old Troll. “They will grow as she grows, so you needn’t trouble about that.”

Time went on, and the little Princess grew to be ten years old.

The old Troll’s promise was fulfilled, and her life had been a perfectly happy one. Watched by her faithful nurse, she had never had any opportunity of losing her magic shoes; and though she often bathed and played about the shore with her young companions, she was never allowed to be without one of her attendants, in case she should forget her Godfather’s caution.

One fine summer afternoon, the Princess, with some of her friends, ran down to the sands from the little gate in the castle wall.

The sea looked green and beautiful, light waves curling over on the narrow strip of yellow shore.

“Let’s wade!” cried the Princess. “My nurse is ill in bed, and my two ladies think we are playing in the garden. We’ll have a little treat of being alone, and enjoy ourselves!”

“We must take our slippers off,” said one of the children, as they raced along.

“Oh, I wish I could!” cried the Princess. “I don’t believe once would matter. I’ll put them in a safe place where the sea can’t get at them,” and as she spoke she pulled off her golden shoes, and hid them in a great hurry behind a sand-bank.

The Princess’s little friends ran off laughing; while she followed, her hair streaming, her bare feet twinkling in the sunlight.

“How nice it is to be free, without those tiresome shoes!” cried the Princess.

The children paddled in the water until they were tired, and then Sidigunda thought it was time to put on her slippers again. She ran to the bank, but gave a cry of astonishment she could only find one of her golden shoes! Tears sprang to her eyes as she looked about her wildly.

“Oh what shall I do?” she cried. “My shoe! My Godfather’s shoe!”

The children gathered round her eagerly.

“It must be there. Who can have taken it?”

They searched the low sand dunes up and down, but not a trace of the lost slipper could be found. It was gone as entirely as if it had never existed; and as the Princess drew on the remaining one, the tears rolled down her face, and fell upon the sand-hill by which she was sitting.

“Oh, Godfather! dear Godfather! come and help me!” she wailed. “Do come and help me!”

At her cry, the sand-hill began to quiver and shake strangely. It heaved up, and an old man’s head, with a long grey beard, appeared in the middle; followed slowly by a little brown-coated body.

“What is the matter, God-daughter? Your tears trickled down to me and woke me up, just as I was comfortably sleeping,” he said querulously. “They’re saltier than the sea, and I can’t stand them.”

“My shoe’s gone! Oh! whatever am I to do? I’m so sorry, Godfather!”

“So you ought to be!” said the old man sharply. “I told you something bad would happen if you ever took them off. The question is now, Where’s the shoe gone to?”

He leant his elbows on the mound, and looked out to sea.

“Just what I thought!” he exclaimed. “The Sea-children have taken it for a boat. I must speak to the Sea-grandmother about them, and get her to keep them in better order.”

“Oh, it’s gone then, and I shall never get it back again!” wept the Princess. “What am I to do, Godfather?”

“Have you courage enough to go and find your shoe by yourself?”

“If that’s the only way to get it back,” said the Princess bravely.

“Well, then, you must start immediately, or the Sea-children will have hidden it away somewhere. You will be obliged to have a passport, but I’ll tell you how to get that. Take this veil” and he drew a thin, transparent piece of silvery gauze from his pocket “and throw it over your head whenever you go under the water. With it you will be able to breathe and see, as well as if you were on dry land. From this flask” and he handed Sidigunda a curious little gold bottle “you must pour a few drops on to your remaining shoe, and whenever you do so it will change in a moment into a boat, a horse, or a fish, as you desire it.”

“How am I to start, and where am I to go to?” asked the Princess, trying not to feel frightened at the prospect before her.

“Launch your shoe as a boat, and float on till you meet the Sea-Troll, who is an old friend of mine. Explain your errand to him, and say I begged him to direct you and give you a passport. And now one last word before I leave you. Never, whatever happens, cry again; for there is nothing worries me so much, and I want to finish my sleep comfortably.”

With these words the old Troll collected his long grey beard which had strayed over the sand-hill; and folding it round him, he disappeared in the hole again.

Princess Sidigunda did not give herself time to think. She ran down to the edge of the water, took off her golden shoe, and poured some of the contents of her Godfather’s flask over it.

It changed immediately into a boat, into which the Princess stepped tremblingly; and it floated away over the blue water until the little Princess, straining her eyes eagerly, lost sight of her home, and the land faded away into a mere streak upon the horizon.

“I wonder when I shall meet the Sea-Troll and what he’s like,” thought Princess Sidigunda. “I suppose I shall be able to recognize him somehow.”

As she thought this, she noticed that some object was rapidly floating towards her. It did not look like a boat, and as it came nearer and nearer, she could see that it was a large shell, on which an old man with a long beard was seated cross-legged, surrounded by a crowd of laughing Sea-children. They clung to the sides of the shell, swum round it, or climbed up to rest themselves on its crinkled edges.

“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” cried the old man in a gruff voice.

The Princess trembled; but she seized her veil and the little flask, and holding them out she repeated her Godfather’s message.

“I’ll see what I can do, though really these children wear me out!” said the Sea-Troll. “I can’t keep my eye on all of them at once! You had better go down to the Sea-city, and ask if they’ve carried your shoe there. If not, the Troll-writers will tell you where it is. Show this to the city guard, and they will direct you to the Palace.” He gave the Princess a flat shell on which some letters were engraved. “Sink down at once,” he continued; “you are over the city now,” and with a wave of his hand he sailed away with the children, and was soon out of sight.

“I suppose there’s nothing else to be done,” sighed Sidigunda, and throwing the scarf over her head, she poured a few drops from the bottle upon her shoe.

“Turn into a fish and carry me down to the Sea-city!” she said.

In a moment she felt herself sinking through the clear water, deeper and deeper, with a delicious drowsy feeling that almost soothed her to sleep. She knew she was not asleep though, for she could see the misty forms of sea creatures, darting about in the dim shadows, and great waving sea-weeds crimson, yellow, and brown floating up from the rippled sand beneath.

And now the shoe swum straight on, darting through the water like an eel; until a large town came in sight, with high walls and Palaces, and shining domes covered with mother-o’-pearl.

They stopped at a great gate, before which a fish dressed as a sentry was standing.

As soon as he saw the little Princess, he drew his sword, and came gliding towards her.

“Your name and business!” he enquired, in a high thin voice.

“I am Princess Sidigunda, seeking my golden shoe, and I bring this from the Sea-Troll,” said the Princess courageously. “Will you tell me where I am to find the Trolls of the Palace?”

The fish handed the shell back sulkily, and pointed up the street.

“Go straight through till you come to the marble building with the pearls over the door,” he said; and gave the Princess a poke with the handle of his sword, that pushed her through the gate, almost before she had time to draw on her golden shoe again.

“What a rude, ill-bred sentry!” said Sidigunda. “My father would be very angry if any of our soldiers behaved so; but then, of course, this one is only a fish. What a strange country I seem to have got into!”

She walked along the street, looking on each side of her curiously.

Many of the houses had transparent domes, like beautiful soap bubbles; some were built of coloured pebbles, and pink and red coral, with branching trees of green and brown seaweed growing up, beside and over them.

Everything was strange, and unlike the earth; but what struck the Princess most was that no inhabitants were to be seen anywhere. A few fish swam about lazily, otherwise an unbroken silence reigned in the Sea-city.

Far away, at the end of the wide sanded road, a great marble palace towered over the surrounding houses; and as the Princess neared it she saw that the doors were wide open. She walked in fearlessly, and found herself in a large hall, with walls entirely covered with cockle-shells. Long stone tables filled the middle of the room; at which a crowd of small brown-coated men were seated, scribbling away with long pens, but in total silence.

The great grey beards of some of the writers had touched the ground, and even twisted themselves round the legs of the benches on which the old men were sitting.

Princess Sidigunda stood for a minute looking on, curiously. She then went up to one of the Trolls and pulled him gently by the sleeve.

He did not look up, but his pen slightly slackened its speed.

“What do you want?” he enquired in an uninterested voice. “Make haste, for I have no time to spare!”

“What rude people they all are!” thought the Princess. “The Sea-Troll said you would tell me how to find my golden shoe,” she continued aloud.

“I wish the Sea-Troll would mind his own business!” said the little brown man vindictively. “He’s always distracting us from our State business with all sorts of messages.”

“Are you working for the State?” enquired Sidigunda.

“Of course! I thought every oyster knew that,” replied the brown Troll.

“Are they particularly uneducated, then?” asked the Princess.

“Why they’re babies!” said the brown Troll. “You can see them any day in their beds by the side of the road, if you have eyes in your head.”

“What a place to keep babies in!” thought the Princess, but she said nothing, for she saw that the old Troll’s disposition was very irritable.

“Would you tell me one thing,” she began. “I do so much want to know why I saw no one in the streets as I came along. Where have all the people gone to?”

“Well, of all the idi ” commenced the brown Troll, then checked himself with an effort. “Of course you can’t know how foolish your questions sound,” he said. “When you’re two or three hundred years old I daresay you’ll be more sensible. Why all the people are asleep you don’t suppose it’s the same as in your country!”

“Do they sleep all the time?” asked the Princess.

“Not all the time, of course. In this town it’s two weeks at a stretch. In other places more, or less. By this arrangement we always have half the population asleep, and half awake much pleasanter and less crowding. I can’t think why it’s not done in other places!”

Princess Sidigunda looked surprised.

“Will the children who took my shoe be asleep?” she enquired anxiously.

“Not they!” said the brown Troll crossly, “I wish they would be! Children under twelve never sleep. It’s like having a crowd of live eels always round me! I’d put them to sleep when they were a month old, and not let them wake till they came of age, if I had my way!”

The Princess felt rather frightened of this savage little brown man. She was afraid to ask any more questions, though she longed to know why he and his companions were not asleep too.

“Go straight down the street,” commenced the old Troll abruptly, “out of the green gate, along the road to the open country. Turn your shoe into a horse, and don’t stop till you reach the Crab-boy’s hut. He will direct you.”

“That sounds simple enough,” thought the Princess, “but I wish he would tell me a little more!”

The brown Troll, however, refused to open his mouth again, and Princess Sidigunda was obliged to start off upon her wanderings, with no more guide than the few words he had chosen to speak to her.

She ran down the silent street, and out at the green gate; the Fish-sentry allowing her to pass without objection. As soon as she reached the country road, she walked more slowly. She particularly wanted to see the beds with the Sea-babies, which the old Troll had spoken about.

For some distance she noticed nothing except wide sandy plains dotted with rocks, shells, and waving forests of giant seaweed huge fish darting about in all directions but at last the scenery grew wilder; and close to the road side she came upon a grove of oysters, each half-open shell containing a Sea-child, whose head and arms appeared above the edges of the shell, while its feet and body were invisible.

Beside them sat an old woman, grey and wrinkled; with a small switch in her hand, with which she occasionally touched the Sea-babies as they leaned too far from their shells, or as their laughter rose too noisily.

The little Princess stopped and looked at the children curiously; and the old woman stepped forward and made a polite curtsey.

“They are rather noisy to-day,” she said deprecatingly. “The oyster-nurses have gone out for a holiday, and I have to keep the whole bed in order!”

“I should like to wait and play with them,” said the Princess, “but I really am in such a hurry I’ve lost my golden shoe.”

“Oh, you’re going to the Crab-boy, I suppose?” said the old woman. “Down the road as straight as you can go, and you’ll come to his hut,” and she turned away to the children again.

Sidigunda took off her slipper, and poured out some drops from her magic bottle.

Immediately it grew larger and larger; and she had just time to spring in, before it galloped away with a series of bounds that made it very difficult to cling on.

Faster and faster it went, until the country seemed only a flying haze; and just as the Princess began to feel she could endure no more, it stopped abruptly before a small hut.

Outside the door a boy sat on a stone seat, playing on a long horn whose notes echoed among the rocky hills that surrounded him.

Princess Sidigunda looked at the boy with a friendly smile. He stopped playing, and made room for her to sit down beside him.

“I knew you were coming,” he said. “You want to go to the Sea-grandmother, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do!” said the Princess. “Do you live here all alone?”

“Why, of course,” replied the Crab-herd, “I look after all the crabs of the district. You may see me collect them if you like, for if I’m to go with you now, I must shut them up safely before starting.”

As he said this, he rose, and blowing a few notes on his horn, he walked slowly along, followed by the Princess.

As the horn sounded, crabs of every size and colour came darting out from the stones, and scuttled across the sand towards the Crab-boy. There were red and green, yellow and brown, large and small a procession growing larger and larger, until it reached an enclosed space, into which the boy guided it, and then shut the gate securely.

The Princess had dropped down to rest upon a conch-shell, in the shade of some purple seaweed, and she looked up at the Crab-herd with her large blue eyes, while he counted his crabs, and chased in one or two of the stragglers.

“Is the Sea-grandmother’s house far off?” she asked thoughtfully.

“Up in the great mountains, no distance from here. She lives in a cave, with plenty of space for her knitting.”

“Does she knit much?” enquired Sidigunda.

“Yes; she knits and spins too. She never leaves off; and never has for hundreds and thousands of years.”

“What a very old lady she must be! Old enough to be a great-great-great-grandmother!” cried the Princess in astonishment.

“If you said three hundred ‘greats’ you would be nearer the real thing,” remarked the Crab-boy. “But come now, follow me, and we will start immediately.”

Princess Sidigunda got up, and taking the Crab-herd’s hand, they set off down the road towards the mountains.

As they reached the foot of the grey cliffs, the Crab-boy unfolded a pair of fin-like wings from his elbows, and began to swim upwards leaving the little Princess with her arms stretched out imploringly towards him.

“Oh, don’t leave me here by myself!” she cried. “I shall never find my way to the Sea-grandmother!”

“Why there she is, just above us in that cave in the side of the mountain,” said the Crab-boy. “Don’t you see her beautiful white hair, and the flash of her knitting-needles?”

The Princess looked up, and there sat a beautiful old lady in a hole in the rock, high, high above them. A crowd of Sea-children played about her, and seemed to be carrying away the cloud-like white knitting as fast as it flowed from her busy fingers.

She bent her head towards Sidigunda, and nodded to her, without ceasing her work for a moment.

“Come, Princess, and talk to me!” she called in a sweet, low voice. “Take your shoe off, and it will bring you here in a moment.”

Sidigunda did as she was told for the old lady spoke as if she were used to being obeyed without question and found herself floating upwards, until she alighted on a broad ledge right in front of the Sea-grandmother.

“So you have come all this way to find your golden shoe?” the old lady said in her clear, even voice. “Sit down, and tell me all about it.”

The Princess thought the Sea-grandmother’s face young and lovely. It was smooth and unwrinkled; eyes clear as crystal, with blue depths in them, shining out with a soft benign look; while her slim hands turned and twisted unceasingly, and her long green dress fell round her in wave-like folds.

Her smile was so soft and kind, that the Princess felt as if she had known her all her life.

“I have sent for your shoe, my child,” she said. “Those tiresome grandchildren of mine give me a great deal of trouble. I can’t keep my eyes on all of them at once, and so they are always in mischief!”

Sidigunda looked up in the gentle face; and sat down confidingly beside the Sea-grandmother.

“Do you always knit so busily, Grandmother?” she said, as she watched the white foamy fabric float off the needles.

“Of course, child. I have been working like this for thousands and thousands of years. Who do you imagine would provide the waves with nightcaps if I ever stopped? When the wind blows and they dance, or when they curl over on the shore, they would be cold indeed, without my comfortable white nightcaps!”

“Can you get me my shoe, dear Grandmother?” asked the little Princess wistfully.

“Certainly, dear child. Though if you had not come at once, you might have had to wait a few hundred years or so, before I could have found it for you. The children wander so far now-a-days! Have you seen it?” the Sea-grandmother continued, turning to some of the children who surrounded her.

“Oh, yes,” they answered in chorus. “Just now it floated above us. We can fetch it in a minute!”

“Swim away then, as fast as you can!” cried the Sea-grandmother, and the children darted off like fish through the green clearness of the water.

The sound of their laughter had hardly died away in the distance, before they reappeared, dragging the golden shoe behind them; and the Princess, with smiles of joy, embraced them all as she drew it on to her foot again.

“Oh, thank you, dearest Grandmother! I don’t know how I can show you how grateful I am,” cried Sidigunda.

“By going home at once to your father and mother, and by promising me never again to be disobedient,” said the Sea-grandmother gravely. “Give me your shoe, and I will order it to take you back to the Castle.”

She stopped her needles for a moment, and passed her hand over the slipper: then kissed the little Princess, and waved the knitting rapidly before her.

A white cloud seemed to float over Sidigunda, and she felt herself lifted up with a soothing motion, until on opening her eyes she found she was once more in the region of the fresh air and sunshine. Looking round, she saw the ruffled surface of the sea, and the waves breaking upon the shore before the Castle.

Her heart beat with happiness, as the golden shoe landed her safely on the beach; and she ran up through the little gate into the Castle gardens, right into the arms of her mother, who was pacing up and down with her attendants, in great anxiety.

Under the shade of some spreading fir trees the Princess related her adventures, begging the King and Queen to forgive her for her disobedience; and the whole Court was so delighted at her return that everyone forgot to scold her.

That evening bonfires were lighted on all the hill-tops; and a great banquet was held in the Castle, at which the Princess appeared amidst loud cheering, and, holding her father’s hand, drank from a golden goblet to the health of her Godfather, the Shore-Troll, and the Sea-grandmother.