When the poor girl heard this she wept bitterly, and cried out, ‘Come to me, my sisters, for I need you badly!’
In a moment they stood beside her, and the elder one said, ‘Do not be sad, all will go well,’ and they told the innkeeper that if any of the king’s servants wanted any birds for their master they were to be sent up to them, as they had three doves for sale.
And so it fell out, and as the doves were very beautiful the servant bought them for the king, who admired them so much that he called his son to look at them. The prince was much pleased with the doves and was coaxing them to come to him, when one fluttered on to the top of the window and said, ‘If you could only hear us speak, you would admire us still more.’
And another perched on a table and added, ‘Talk away, it might help him to remember!’
And the third flew on his shoulder and whispered to him, ‘Put on this ring, prince, and see if it fits you.’
And it did. Then they hung a collar round his neck, and held a feather on which was written the name of the dove. And at last his memory came back to him, and he declared he would marry the princess and nobody else. So the next day the wedding took place, and they lived happy till they died.
(From the Portuguese.)
VIRGILIUS THE SORCERER
Long, long ago there was born to a Roman knight and his wife Maja a little boy called Virgilius. While he was still quite little, his father died, and the kinsmen, instead of being a help and protection to the child and his mother, robbed them of their lands and money, and the widow, fearing that they might take the boy’s life also, sent him away to Spain, that he might study in the great University of Toledo.