Then the servant went back to the king, and told him all he knew. And his majesty answered: ‘I will have the fifteen-year-old one. Go and bring her here.’
The servant returned a third time to the little house and knocked at the door. In reply to his knock the lattice window was pushed open, and a voice inquired what it was he wanted.
‘The king has desired me to bring back the youngest of you to become his queen,’ he replied.
‘Tell his majesty I am ready to do his bidding, but since my birth no ray of light has fallen upon my face. If it should ever do so I shall instantly grow black. Therefore beg, I pray you, his most gracious majesty to send this evening a shut carriage, and I will return in it to the castle.
When the king heard this he ordered his great golden carriage to be prepared, and in it to be placed some magnificent robes; and the old woman wrapped herself in a thick veil, and was driven to the castle.
The king was eagerly awaiting her, and when she arrived he begged her politely to raise her veil and let him see her face.
But she answered: ‘Here the tapers are too bright and the light too strong. Would you have me turn black under your very eyes?’
And the king believed her words, and the marriage took place without the veil being once lifted. Afterwards, when they were alone, he raised the corner, and knew for the first time that he had wedded a wrinkled old woman. And, in a furious burst of anger, he dashed open the window and flung her out. But, luckily for her, her clothes caught on a nail in the wall, and kept her hanging between heaven and earth.
While she was thus suspended, expecting every moment to be dashed to the ground, four fairies happened to pass by.
‘Look, sisters,’ cried one, ‘surely that is the old woman that the king sent for. Shall we wish that her clothes may give way, and that she should be dashed to the ground?’