Then she ran out of the neighbor’s house. The night after, in the
Spae-Woman’s house she finished weaving the threads that were on the
loom. The next night she stitched the cloth and made the sixth shirt.
The day after she went into the bog to gather the bog-down for the
seventh shirt. She had gathered her basketful and was going through the
wood about the hour of sunset. At the edge of the thin wood she saw the
Hunter-King standing. He took her hands and his were warm hands. His
brown face and his gentian-blue eyes were high and noble. And Sheen
felt a joy like the sharpness of a sword when he sang to her about the
brightness of her hair and the blue of her eyes. “O Maid,” said he,
“is there anything that binds you to this place?” Sheen showed him the
bog-down in the basket and the woven thread that was round her neck.
“Come with me to my kingdom,” said he, “and you shall be my wife and the
love of my heart.” The next evening Sheen went with him. She took the
six shirts she had spun and woven and stitched. The Hunter-King lifted
her before him on a black horse and they rode into his Kingdom.
And now Sheen was the wife of the Hunter-King. She would have been happy
if her husband’s sisters had been kind. But they were jealous and they
made everything in the Castle unfriendly to her. And often they talked
before her brother saying that Sheen was not noble at all, and that the
reason she did not speak was because her language was a base one. They
watched her when she went out to gather bog-down in the daytime, and
they watched her when she spun by herself at night. Sheen longed for the
days and nights to pass so that the last threads might be spun and woven
and the last stitches put in the seventh shirt. Then her brothers would
be with her. She could tell the King about herself and silence the bad
talk of his sisters. But as she neared the end of her task she became
more and more in dread.
The threads were spun and woven for the seventh shirt. The cloth was
made and the first stitches were put in it. Then Sheen’s little son was
born. The King was away at the time, gathering his men together at far
parts of the Kingdom, and he sent a message saying that Sheen and her
baby were to be well-minded, and that his sisters were not to leave the
chamber where she was until he returned.
On the third night, while Sheen was in her bed with her baby beside her,
and while her sisters-in-law were in the room, a strange music was heard
outside. It was played all round the King’s house. Whoever heard it fell
into deep slumber. The kern that were on guard slept. The maids that
were whispering together fell into a slumber. And a deep sleep came upon
Sheen and her child and on her three sisters-in-law who watched in the
chamber.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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