The Grimm Chronicles, Vol. 4
Page 38
The next morning she was brought before the king and sentenced to be banished from the land, but the prince said, “Wait, wouldn't it be better to let her tend the chickens in the courtyard?” So she stayed there for a time and tended the chickens. The prince saw her often and grew very fond of her.
Meanwhile the time came when he was to get married. Messengers were sent everywhere in the world to find him a beautiful bride. “You needn't look so far and wide,” he said. “I know where one is very nearby.”
The old king pondered this back and forth, but he could not think of a single maiden in his kingdom who was both beautiful and rich, “You surely don't want to marry the one who tends the chickens in the courtyard?” But his son declared that he would marry no one else, so finally the king had to agree. Soon afterward he died, and the prince succeeded him as king and lived happily for a time with his wife.
Once the king had to go away to war, and during his absence his wife gave birth to a beautiful child. She sent a messenger with a letter telling her husband the joyful news. On the way the messenger stopped to rest by a brook and fell asleep. The devil, who was still trying to harm her, came to him and exchanged the letter with one that stated that the queen had given birth to a changeling. The king was very saddened to read this, but he wrote that the queen and the child should be well cared for until his return. The messenger started back with this letter. When he stopped to rest at the same spot and fell asleep, the devil again appeared, this time exchanging the king's letter with one that ordered the queen and the child to be driven from the kingdom. This had to be done, however much the people all wept with sorrow.
“I did not come here to become queen,” she said. “I have no luck, and I demand none. Just tie my child and my hands onto my back, and I will set forth into the world.”
That evening she came to a place in a thick forest where a good old man was sitting by a spring. “Be so kindhearted as to hold my child to my breast until I have nursed him,” she said.
The man did that, after which he said to her, “Go to that thick tree over there and wrap your maimed arms around it three times!” And when she had done this, her hands grew back on. Then he showed her a house. “You can live there,” he said, “but do not go outside, and do not open the door for anyone unless he asks three times to come in, for God's sake.”
Meanwhile the king returned home and discovered how he had been deceived. Accompanied by a single servant he set forth, and after a long journey he finally happened, one night, into the same forest where the queen was living, but he did not know that she was so close to him. “There is a little light from a house back there,” said his servant. “We can rest there.”
“No,” said the king. “I do not want to rest so long, but rather to continue searching for my wife. I cannot rest until I find her.”
But the servant begged so much and complained so about his weariness that out of compassion, the king gave in. When they came to the house, the moon was shining, and they saw the queen standing by the window. “That must be our queen; she looks just like her,” said the servant, “but I see now that she is not the one, for this one has hands.”
The servant asked her for shelter, but she refused, because he had not asked “for God's sake.” He was about to go on and seek another place for their night's lodging when the king himself came up and said, “Let me in, for God's sake!”
“I cannot let you in until you have asked me three time, for God's sake,” she replied. And after the king had asked two more times, she opened the door. His little son ran to him and led him in to his mother. The king recognized her immediately as his beloved wife. The next morning they all journeyed together back to their kingdom, and as soon as they had left the house, it disappeared behind them.