The man’s daughter wept, and was sorely troubled, for Little Snow was
the dearest thing she had on earth, but at last she threw him
overboard.
‘If my brother says that, I must do it, but Heaven knows how unwilling
I am to throw thee out, Little Snow!’ said she.
So they sailed onwards a long way farther.
‘There may’st thou see the King coming out to meet thee,’ said the
brother, pointing to the sea-shore.
‘What is my brother saying?’ asked his sister again.
‘Now he says that you are to make haste and throw yourself overboard,’
answered the step-mother.
She wept and she wailed, but as her brother had said that, she thought
she must do it; so she leaped into the sea.
But when they arrived at the palace, and the King beheld the ugly bride
with a nose that was four ells long, a jaw that was three ells, and a
forehead that had a bush in the middle of it, he was quite terrified;
but the wedding feast was all prepared, as regarded brewing and baking,
and all the wedding guests were sitting waiting, so, ugly as she was,
the King was forced to take her.
But he was very wroth, and none can blame him for that; so he caused
the brother to be thrown into a pit full of snakes.
On the first Thursday night after this, a beautiful maiden came into
the kitchen of the palace, and begged the kitchen-maid, who slept
there, to lend her a brush. She begged very prettily, and got it, and
then she brushed her hair, and the gold dropped from it.
A little dog was with her, and she said to it, ‘Go out, Little Snow,
and see if it will soon be day!’
This she said thrice, and the third time that she sent out the dog to
see, it was very near dawn. Then she was forced to depart, but as she
went she said:
‘Out on thee, ugly Bushy Bride,
Sleeping so soft by the young King’s side,
On sand and stones my bed I make,
And my brother sleeps with the cold snake,
Unpitied and unwept.’
I shall come twice more, and then never again,’ said she.
In the morning the kitchen-maid related what she had seen and heard,
and the King said that next Thursday night he himself would watch in
the kitchen and see if this were true, and when it had begun to grow
dark he went out into the kitchen to the girl. But though he rubbed his
eyes and did everything he could to keep himself awake it was all in
vain, for the Bushy Bride crooned and sang till his eyes were fast
closed, and when the beautiful young maiden came he was sound asleep
and snoring.
This time also, as before, she borrowed a brush and brushed her hair
with it, and the gold dropped down as she did it; and again she sent
the dog out three times, and when day dawned she departed, but as she
was going she said as she had said before, ‘I shall come once more, and
then never again.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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