So sister opened the door and said, ‘Now mind and get back by
nightfall, and say your little rhyme.’
As soon as the King and his huntsmen saw the Roe with the golden collar
they all rode off after it, but it was far too quick and nimble for
them. This went on all day, but as evening came on the huntsmen had
gradually encircled the Roe, and one of them wounded it slightly in the
foot, so that it limped and ran off slowly.
Then the huntsman stole after it as far as the little house, and heard
it call out, ‘My sister dear, open; I’m here,’ and he saw the door open
and close immediately the fawn had run in.
The huntsman remembered all this carefully, and went off straight to
the King and told him all he had seen and heard.
‘To-morrow we will hunt again,’ said the King.
Poor sister was terribly frightened when she saw how her little Fawn
had been wounded. She washed off the blood, bound up the injured foot
with herbs, and said: ‘Now, dear, go and lie down and rest, so that
your wound may heal.’
The wound was really so slight that it was quite well next day, and the
little Roe did not feel it at all. No sooner did it hear the sounds of
hunting in the forest than it cried:
‘I can’t stand this, I must be there too; I’ll take care they shan’t
catch me.’
Sister began to cry, and said, ‘They are certain to kill you, and then
I shall be left all alone in the forest and forsaken by everyone. I
can’t and won’t let you out.’
‘Then I shall die of grief,’ replied the Roe, ‘for when I hear that
horn I feel as if I must jump right out of my skin.’
So at last, when sister found there was nothing else to be done, she
opened the door with a heavy heart, and the Roe darted forth full of
glee and health into the forest.
As soon as the King saw the Roe, he said to his huntsman, ‘Now then,
give chase to it all day till evening, but mind and be careful not to
hurt it.’
When the sun had set the King said to his huntsman, ‘Now come and show
me the little house in the wood.’
And when he got to the house he knocked at the door and said, ‘My
sister dear, open; I’m here.’ Then the door opened and the King walked
in, and there stood the loveliest maiden he had ever seen.
The girl was much startled when instead of the little Roe she expected
she saw a man with a gold crown on his head walk in. But the King
looked kindly at her, held out his hand, and said, ‘Will you come with
me to my castle and be my dear wife?’
‘Oh yes!’ replied the maiden, ‘but you must let my Roe come too. I
could not possibly forsake it.’
‘It shall stay with you as long as you live, and shall want for
nothing,’ the King promised.
In the meantime the Roe came bounding in, and sister tied the rush cord
once more to its collar, took the end in her hand, and so they left the
little house in the forest together.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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