The king took the offer, and lay down in the side room; but he could not close an eye for the moaning of the charcoal-burner’s wife. Towards midnight she bore a beautiful boy, and now it was quiet in the hut. Yet still the king could not sleep. He got up from his couch, drew near the door, and looked through a chink into the room where the sick woman lay. He could see her sleeping in her bed; her man, fast asleep too, lay behind the stove; and in its cradle was the new-born child, with three ladies in white standing round it.
The king heard one say, ‘I wish this boy a misfortune.’
The second said, ‘And I grant him a means to turn this misfortune to good.’
The third said, ‘I will bring to pass his marriage with the daughter of the king who is now in the next room. At this very moment his wife is bringing into the world a girl of marvellous beauty.’
Thereupon the three ladies departed; and the king thought and thought how to destroy this boy. Early next morning the charcoal-burner came into the side room and said, weeping, to the king, ‘My poor wife is dead. What can I do with the little child?’
The king answered, quite rejoiced, ‘I am the king, and will care for the child. Only show me the way to the city, and I will send one of my servants to fetch the child.’
And so it was. The charcoal-burner guided his king to the city and was richly rewarded; and the king sent a servant back with secret instructions to fling the boy into [[134]]the river and let him drown. When now the servant was returning from the forest with the child, he flung it, basket and all, into the river, and told the king, ‘Most gracious king, I have done as thou hast commanded me.’ The king rewarded him, and went now to his wife, who the night before had borne a girl of marvellous beauty.
The basket with the boy went floating about a long time on the water, and at last was seen by a fisherman who drew it out, and took the child home to his wife. They both rejoiced greatly at the sight of this pretty boy; and as they had no children they kept him and brought him up.
Twenty years went by; and the boy, whom his parents called Nameless, grew up a wonderfully pretty lad. Once the king passed the fisherman’s hut, and saw the fair youngster. He entered the hut and asked the fisherman, ‘Is this pretty youngster your son?’
‘No,’ said the fisherman, ‘twenty years ago I fished him out of the water.’