Gypsy folk-tales

by Francis Hindes Groome

And the maid-servant lowered the rope, and they fastened the victuals to it, and she drew them up by the rope. And the maid-servant had a bedchamber apart, where she slept only of a night, and the day she passed with the princess.

And that emperor’s son screwed on his wings and flew up, flew to the glass house, and he looked to see how the bars opened, and opened them, and let himself in. And she was lying lifeless on the bed. And he shakes her, and she never speaks. And he took the candle from her head; and she arose, and embraced him, and said to him, ‘Since you are come to me, you are mine, and I am yours.’ They loved one another till daybreak; then he went out, placed the candle at her head, and she was dead. And he closed the bars again, and flew back to the old woman.

Half a year he visited the princess. She fell with child. The maid-servant noticed that she was growing big, and her clothes did not fit her. She wrote a letter to the emperor: ‘What will this be, that your daughter is big?’ The emperor wrote back a letter to her: ‘Smear the floor at night with dough, and whoever comes will leave his mark on the floor.’ She placed the candle at her head, and the girl lay dead. And she smeared the floor with dough, and went to her chamber. The emperor’s son came again to her, and let himself in to her, and never noticed they had smeared the floor, and made footprints with his shoes, and the dough stuck to his shoes, but he never noticed it, and went home to the old woman, and lay down and slept. The servant-maid went to the emperor’s daughter, and saw the footprints, and wrote a letter to the emperor, and took the measure of the footprints, and sent it to the emperor. The emperor summoned two servants, and gave them a letter, and gave them the measure of the footprints. ‘Whose shoes the measure shall fit, bring him to me.’ They traversed the whole city, and found nothing.

And one said, ‘Let’s try the old woman’s.’

And another said, ‘No, there’s nobody there.’

‘Stay here. I’ll go.’

And he saw him sleeping, and applied the measure to his shoes. They summoned him. ‘Come to the emperor.’ [[102]]

‘All right.’

He bought himself a great cloak, and put it on, so that his wings might not be noticed, and went to the emperor. The emperor asked him, ‘Have you been going to my daughter?’

‘I have.’