Fairy Tales From All Nations

by Anthony R. Montalba

She then related to her brother what had occurred during the journey, and the deception her aunt had been guilty of. As she thus recounted her unhappy fate, which constrained her to fly about unprotected, her life exposed to the snares of the hunters, whilst her beloved brother was languishing in prison, she wept abundantly; and the tears rolled about the tower as costly pearls, and golden feathers fell from her, and glittered on the dark ground.

The brother and sister pitied and tried to console each other. Henry especially lamented his talkativeness, which had brought all this misfortune upon them. At day-break the duck flew away, after promising to visit her brother every night.

After this intercourse had lasted some time, one night she did not make her appearance, which threw poor Henry into the greatest anxiety, for he feared she might, for the sake of her precious feathers, have been caught, or perhaps even killed. Then, for the first time, the door of his prison was opened; the count's superintendent entered, announced that he was free, and conducted him to the very same apartments which he had occupied in happier days.

Before Henry could recover from his surprise, the count himself entered, tenderly embraced him, and besought his forgiveness for all the suffering that had been inflicted on him.

The warder of the tower, it appeared, had remarked the golden duck, and heard with astonishment how she spoke with a human voice, and conversed with the prisoner; all of which he had disclosed to the count. The count thus discovered, by listening in secret to their conversation, the fraud which had imposed the false bride upon him instead of the true and beautiful one. Vain, however, were his efforts the following night to get the golden duck into his power; she escaped from all the attendants who endeavoured to catch her; and snares and nets and all the artifices they practised, and all the pains they took, were of no avail.

Then the count entreated the intercession of the brother. Since his hard fate had robbed him of such an amiable wife, he besought her at least in her present form to inhabit his castle. It was possible that his grief, his love, might move the offended fairy to restore her to her former shape.

Henry freely forgave the count, and promised to make his request known to his sister the next time she should visit him. Before, however, the duck's next visit, Adelheid expired, for the reproaches of her husband, and her own grief and remorse, had brought her to the grave. As soon as she was dead, the count banished Jutta to a remote place and forbade her ever to appear in his presence again. With Henry he lived on his former friendly terms.

Both lived in hopes of the reappearance of the golden duck. Long did they wait in vain, and they began to fear that the endeavours of the count to catch her had scared her from the place for ever, when one afternoon, as Henry was sitting alone in the dining-hall, she flew in at the window, and began gathering up the scattered crumbs on the table. How great was the brother's joy! He addressed her by the tenderest names, stroked her golden feathers, and inquired why she had remained so long absent.

Then Emma complained of the efforts to catch her, which the count's servants had made, and threatened never to return should such he repeated. The entreaty which Henry made in the count's name that she would dwell in the castle she decidedly rejected; and as she heard a noise in the adjoining chamber, she hastily flew away.

For a long time the youth hesitated whether he should tell the count of his sister's visit; as, however, he knew the strong affection of his friend, and feared he might not refrain from fresh attempts against the liberty of the golden duck, he resolved to say nothing about it. But the count had seen the duck fly past, and when Henry said nothing about it, he conceived mistrust of him, and laid a new plan to get possession of her.