in which went an hour’s walk at every step, and it was not long before
she overtook them. The girl, however, when she saw the old woman
striding towards her, changed, with her magic wand, her sweetheart
Roland into a lake, and herself into a duck swimming in the middle of
it. The witch placed herself on the shore, threw bread-crumbs in, and
gave herself every possible trouble to entice the duck; but the duck
did not let herself be enticed, and the old woman had to go home at
night as she had come. On this the girl and her sweetheart Roland
resumed their natural shapes again, and they walked on the whole night
until daybreak. Then the maiden changed herself into a beautiful flower
which stood in the midst of a briar hedge, and her sweetheart Roland
into a fiddler. It was not long before the witch came striding up
towards them, and said to the musician, “Dear musician, may I pluck
that beautiful flower for myself?” “Oh, yes,” he replied, “I will play
to you while you do it.” As she was hastily creeping into the hedge and
was just going to pluck the flower, for she well knew who the flower
was, he began to play, and whether she would or not, she was forced to
dance, for it was a magical dance. The quicker he played, the more
violent springs was she forced to make, and the thorns tore her clothes
from her body, and pricked her and wounded her till she bled, and as he
did not stop, she had to dance till she lay dead on the ground.
When they were delivered, Roland said, “Now I will go to my father and
arrange for the wedding.” “Then in the meantime I will stay here and
wait for thee,” said the girl, “and that no one may recognize me, I
will change myself into a red stone land-mark.” Then Roland went away,
and the girl stood like a red land-mark in the field and waited for her
beloved. But when Roland got home, he fell into the snares of another,
who prevailed on him so far that he forgot the maiden. The poor girl
remained there a long time, but at length, as he did not return at all,
she was sad, and changed herself into a flower, and thought, “Some one
will surely come this way, and trample me down.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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