‘That I will tell you,’ answered Minnikin. ‘When Ritter Red has taken
you home again, and given out that it was he who rescued you, he will,
as you know, have you to wife, and half the kingdom. But when they ask
you on your wedding-day whom you will have to be your cup-bearer, you
must say, “I will have the ragged boy who is in the kitchen, and
carries wood and water for the kitchen-maid;” and when I am filling
your cups for you, I will spill a drop upon his plate but none upon
yours, and then he will be angry and strike me, and this will take
place thrice. But the third time you must say, “Shame on you thus to
smite the beloved of mine heart. It is he who delivered me from the
Troll, and he is the one whom I will have.”’
Then Minnikin ran back to the King’s palace as he had done before, but
first he went on board the Troll’s ship and took a great quantity of
gold and silver and other precious things, and out of these he once
more gave to the kitchen-maid a whole armful of gold and silver hoops.
No sooner did Ritter Red see that all danger was over than he crept
down from the tree, and threatened the King’s daughter till he made her
promise to say that he had rescued her. Then he conducted her back to
the King’s palace, and if honour enough had not been done him before it
was certainly done now, for the King had no other thought than how to
make much of the man who had saved his daughter from the three Trolls;
and it was settled then that Ritter Red should marry her, and receive
half the kingdom.
On the wedding-day, however, the Princess begged that she might have
the little boy who was in the kitchen, and carried wood and water for
the kitchen-maid, to fill the wine-cups at the wedding feast.
‘Oh, what can you want with that dirty, ragged boy, in here?’ said
Ritter Red, but the Princess said that she insisted on having him as
cup-bearer and would have no one else; and at last she got leave, and
then everything was done as had been agreed on between the Princess and
Minnikin. He spilt a drop on Ritter Red’s plate but none upon hers, and
each time that he did it Ritter Red fell into a rage and struck him. At
the first blow all the ragged garments which he had worn in the kitchen
fell from off Minnikin, at the second blow the brass garments fell off,
and at the third the silver raiment, and there he stood in the golden
raiment, which was so bright and splendid that light flashed from it.
Then the King’s daughter said: ‘Shame on you thus to smite the beloved
of my heart. It is he who delivered me from the Troll, and he is the
one whom I will have.’
Ritter Red swore that he was the man who had saved her, but the King
said: ‘He who delivered my daughter must have some token in proof of
it.’
So Ritter Red ran off at once for his handkerchief with the lungs and
tongue, and Minnikin went and brought all the gold and silver and
precious things which he had taken out of the Trolls’ ships; and they
each of them laid these tokens before the King.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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