‘With what purpose have you done so?’
‘I want to marry her.’
The emperor said, ‘Bah! you’ll not marry her, for I’ll burn you both with thorns.’
The emperor commanded his servants, and they gathered three loads of thorns, and set them on fire, and lowered her down, to put them both on the fire. The emperor’s son asked, ‘Allow us to say a pater noster.’ He said to the girl, ‘When I fall on my knees, do you creep under the cloak and clasp me round the neck, for I’ll fly upwards with you.’
She clasped him round the neck, and quickly he screwed the wings, and flew upwards. The cloak flew off, the soldiers fired their guns at it; on he flew. She cried, ‘Let yourself down, for I shall bear a child.’
He said, ‘Hold out.’
He flew further, and alighted on a rock on a mountain, and she brought forth a child there. She said, ‘Make a fire.’ He saw a fire in a field afar off. He screwed his wings, and flew to the fire, and took a brand of it, and returned. And a spark fell on one wing, and the wing caught fire. Just as he was under the mountain the wing fell off, and he flung away the other one as well. And he walked round the mountain, and could not ascend it.
And God came to him and said, ‘Why weepest thou?’
‘Ah! how should I not weep? for I cannot ascend the mountain, and my wife has brought forth a child.’
‘What will you give me if I carry you up to the top?’