King saw him he fell into a passion, and ordered him to be cast into
the deepest dungeon. Then the huntsman spoke further and said, “Father,
will you see the maiden who brought me up so tenderly and who was
afterwards to murder me, but did not do it, though her own life
depended on it?” The King replied, “Yes, I would like to see her.” The
son said, “Most gracious father, I will show her to you in the form of
a beautiful flower,” and he thrust his hand into his pocket and brought
forth the pink, and placed it on the royal table, and it was so
beautiful that the King had never seen one to equal it. Then the son
said, “Now will I show her to you in her own form,” and wished that she
might become a maiden, and she stood there looking so beautiful that no
painter could have made her look more so.
And the King sent two waiting-maids and two attendants into the tower,
to fetch the Queen and bring her to the royal table. But when she was
led in she ate nothing, and said, “The gracious and merciful God who
has supported me in the tower, will speedily deliver me.” She lived
three days more, and then died happily, and when she was buried, the
two white doves which had brought her food to the tower, and were
angels of heaven, followed her body and seated themselves on her grave.
The aged King ordered the cook to be torn in four pieces, but grief
consumed the King’s own heart, and he soon died. His son married the
beautiful maiden whom he had brought with him as a flower in his
pocket, and whether they are still alive or not, is known to God.
77 Clever Grethel
There was once a cook named Grethel, who wore shoes with red rosettes,
and when she walked out with them on, she turned herself this way and
that, and thought, “You certainly are a pretty girl!” And when she came
home she drank, in her gladness of heart, a draught of wine, and as
wine excites a desire to eat, she tasted the best of whatever she was
cooking until she was satisfied, and said, “The cook must know what the
food is like.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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