The waiting-maid now mounted Falada, and the true bride the bad horse,
and thus they traveled onwards, until at length they entered the royal
palace. There were great rejoicings over her arrival, and the prince
sprang forward to meet her, lifted the waiting-maid from her horse, and
thought she was his consort. She was conducted upstairs, but the real
princess was left standing below. Then the old King looked out of the
window and saw her standing in the courtyard, and how dainty and
delicate and beautiful she was, and instantly went to the royal
apartment, and asked the bride about the girl she had with her who was
standing down below in the courtyard, and who she was? “I picked her up
on my way for a companion; give the girl something to work at, that she
may not stand idle.” But the old King had no work for her, and knew of
none, so he said, “I have a little boy who tends the geese, she may
help him.” The boy was called Conrad, and the true bride had to help
him to tend the geese. Soon afterwards the false bride said to the
young King, “Dearest husband, I beg you to do me a favour.” He
answered, “I will do so most willingly.” “Then send for the knacker,
and have the head of the horse on which I rode here cut off, for it
vexed me on the way.” In reality, she was afraid that the horse might
tell how she had behaved to the King’s daughter. Then she succeeded in
making the King promise that it should be done, and the faithful Falada
was to die; this came to the ears of the real princess, and she
secretly promised to pay the knacker a piece of gold if he would
perform a small service for her. There was a great dark-looking gateway
in the town, through which morning and evening she had to pass with the
geese: would he be so good as to nail up Falada’s head on it, so that
she might see him again, more than once. The knacker’s man promised to
do that, and cut off the head, and nailed it fast beneath the dark
gateway.
Early in the morning, when she and Conrad drove out their flock beneath
this gateway, she said in passing,
“Alas, Falada, hanging there!”
Then the head answered,
“Alas, young Queen, how ill you fare!
If this your tender mother knew,
Her heart would surely break in two.”
Then they went still further out of the town, and drove their geese
into the country. And when they had come to the meadow, she sat down
and unbound her hair which was like pure gold, and Conrad saw it and
delighted in its brightness, and wanted to pluck out a few hairs. Then
she said,
“Blow, blow, thou gentle wind, I say,
Blow Conrad’s little hat away,
And make him chase it here and there,
Until I have braided all my hair,
And bound it up again.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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