"But when I begged him, he thought awhile and softened his curse. When
Glory-banner, King of the Angas, shall become your husband, and shall
see you swallowed by the giant, and shall kill the giant, then the
curse shall end, and you shall remember all your magic arts.' Then he
left me here, and went with his people to the Nishadha mountain. But I
stayed here because of the curse. And now the curse is ended, and I
remember everything. So now I shall go to the Nishadha mountain to see
my father. Of course now I remember how to fly. And you are at liberty
to stay here, or to go back to your own kingdom."
Then the king was sad, and he begged her thus: "My beautiful wife, do
not go for seven days. Be as kind as you are beautiful. Let me be happy
with you in the garden, and forget my longings. Then you may go to your
father, and I will go home." So he persuaded her, and was happy with
her for six days in the garden. And the lilies in the ponds looked like
longing eyes, and the ripples like hands raised to detain them, and the
cries of swans and cranes seemed to say: "Do not leave us and go away."
On the seventh day the king cleverly led his wife to the pool from
which one could get back to the world. There he threw his arms about
her and plunged into the pool, and came up with her in the pool in the
garden of his own palace.
The gardeners saw that the king had come back with a wife, and they
joyfully ran and told the counsellor Farsight. He came and fell at the
king's feet, and then led the king and the fairy into the palace. And
the counsellor and the people thought: "Wonderful! The king has won the
fairy whom others could see only for a moment like the lightning in the
sky. Whatever is written in one's fate, that comes true, however
impossible it may be."
But when Moonlight saw that the king was in his own country, and the
seven days were over, she thought she would fly away like other
fairies. But she could not remember how. Then she became very sad, like
a woman who has been robbed.
And the king said: "Why are you so sad, my dear? Tell me." And the
fairy said: "The curse is over. Yet because I have been bound so long
in the fetters of your love, I have lost my magic arts. I cannot fly."
Then the king thought: "The fairy is really mine," and he was happy and
made a great feast.
When the counsellor Farsight saw this, he went home, and lay down on
his bed, and his heart broke, and he died. Then the king governed the
kingdom himself, and lived for a long time in heavenly happiness with
Moonlight.
When he had told this story, the goblin said: "O King, when the king
was so happy, why should the counsellor's heart break? Was it from
grief because he did not win the fairy himself? Or from sorrow because
the king came back, and he could no longer act as king? If you know and
will not tell me, then you will lose your virtue, and your head will go
flying into a hundred pieces."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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