“Nay, mother; I too would fain have a beautiful creature, such as yonder man had, and sit upon it. Up here there are but sheep, and one cannot sit upon them.”
“Now thou wouldst have a horse indeed, wouldst thou, foolish child! Dost not see that it were dangerous to life to ride here? The grass is slippery and the abyss deep. One false step, and thou wert lying shattered to pieces down below.”
Alba thought over this for a long while, and wondered why it was dangerous for horses to go where sheep could tread in safety; but to this question also she got no reply, for she did not dare to ask it. Only, the dwarfs appeared much uglier to her than before, and the gold became so distasteful to her that she could not bear to look at it. She constantly thought of the beautiful horse, and of the youth who was to have his neck broken if he showed himself there again. Why did her mother want to break his neck? This time, too, she found no answer, however much she puzzled over the matter.
Some time after, the handsome youth rode up to the mountain again; he was tormented by curiosity to discover who lived in that mighty castle, whose walls were hewn out of the living rock. He was a king’s son, and his name was Porfirie. He was not used to being unable to do things, and any obstacle was welcome to his impetuous nature. When they spoke to him of marriage, he was wont to reply that he should win his bride from the clutches of a dragon, or pluck her down from a cliff, but never have her tamely wooed for him by a deputy, and end up with a commonplace wedding!
Just at that moment Alba was busy bedecking herself, by way of passing the time, after having worked at reeling off gold all the morning. She had bathed her hands and face, and combed her long hair with her ivory comb, and about her brow she had bound a double row of pearls, in which she had fastened an alpine rose sideways. Her robe was white, with a golden girdle, and over it flowed a green velvet mantle, held on either shoulder with chains of pearls. Around her snow-white throat she laid a string of emeralds, as large as pigeons’ eggs, a present from the mountain-dwarfs; and then she looked at herself in the glass, in which, however, she could not see how her golden hair gleamed upon the green velvet mantle. Indeed, she could not have seen aright at all, or the glass was bad, for now she smote her face, crying: “How ugly I am!—oh, how ugly! That is why my mother hides me from all men, and gives me fine dresses, and jewels like a queen’s—that it may be forgotten how ugly I am!”
Just then the sound of horses’ hoofs echoed among the rocks, and with horror-stricken gaze she beheld the handsome stranger, who was to lose his life if he appeared again before the castle. He must be warned at any cost. She sprang like a wild goat down the mountain-side, with fluttering mantle and waving hair, in which the sunbeams seemed to catch as she went. The young King saw her speeding towards him over the rocks, her feet scarcely seeming to touch the stones upon the way, and reined in his horse in wonder-struck admiration. He asked himself what princess, or mountain-fairy, this might be, flying down to him thus. And now she waved both her arms, crying breathlessly: “Back, back! Do not come up hither—it were thy death!”
“And though it should be my death,” he exclaimed, “I would die gladly, seeing I have beheld the fairest maid that ever trod this earth!”
Alba stood still before him, a faint blush overspread her cheeks, and looking at him with wide-open eyes, she said: “Am I fair?”