“Nothing,” said the lads.
“Then it was not you who brought it,” said the Queen; “you are thieves.” And she caused them to be arrested and cast into prison, saying:
“You shall not be released until the real hero who brought the Fairy Nightingale is presented to me.”
Some women who were gleaning barley in the fields happened to pass near the well where the lad was left, and hearing him groan took him out; one of them, who had no children, adopted him as her son. After a few weeks news came from the city to the village to the effect that the King’s sons had brought the Fairy Nightingale, but the Fairy Queen, the owner of the Nightingale, also had come after it. One day the lad asked permission of his adopted mother, saying:
“A new church has been built, let me go and see it.”
The old woman consented, and he went to the city as a peasant boy. He went to his father’s house and heard that his brothers were imprisoned. He went directly to the prison and set them free. The Fairy Queen, hearing this, came and said to the lad:
“I am the Fairy Queen, the owner of the Nightingale; are you not afraid of me?”
“I am he who brought the Fairy Nightingale,” said the lad, “I am not afraid of you.”
“What did you see on the way?” asked the Queen.
The lad told her what he had seen and what he had done.