CHAPTER V
SLOVAK, MORAVIAN, AND BOHEMIAN GYPSY STORIES
No. 41.—The Three Girls
Somewhere there was a king who had three daughters, princesses. Those three sisters used to go to meet the devils, and the father knew not where they went to. But there was one called Jankos; Halenka aided him.
The king asks Jankos, ‘Don’t you know where my daughters go? Not one single night are they at home, and they are always wearing out new shoes.’
Then Jankos lay down in front of the door, and kept watch to see where they went to. But Halenka told him everything; she aided him. ‘They will, when they come, fling fire on you, and prick you with needles.’ Halenka told him he must not stir, but be like a corpse.
They came, those devils, for the girls, and straightway the girls set out with them to hell. On, on, they walked, but he stuck close to them. As the girls went to hell he followed close behind, but so that they knew it not. He went through the diamond forest; when he came there he cut himself a diamond twig from the forest. He follows; straightway they, those girls, cried, ‘Jankos is coming behind us.’ For when he broke it, he made a great noise. The girls heard it. ‘Jankos is coming behind us.’
But the devils said, ‘What does it matter if he is?’