Off went the Step-mother, and was as pleased with what she had done this time as with what she had done that time; for the two crows sat on the thorn-tree, and the first crow said to the second crow, “Yonder goes the beauty.” And the second crow said to the first, “Yes, there is none to compare with her now that the young queen has been changed to a white dove.”
At the king’s castle they hunted for the queen high, and they hunted for the queen low, but could find neither thread nor hair of her. As for the white dove, it had flown in at a window, and there the little cook-boy found it, and caught it and sold it to the cook for a penny. So the beautiful white dove sat over the kitchen window, and did nothing but mourn from the dawn to the gloaming.
One day the folk in the kitchen were talking together. The king was lying sick abed and dying of a broken heart because his beautiful young queen was nowhere to be found. That was what they said, and the white bird heard every word of it.
The next morning when they came to the kitchen there was a beautiful sweet cake lying upon a white napkin, and on the cake were written these words:
“Break this, my king, and ease thy sorrow.”
They took the sweet cake to the king where he lay, and he broke it as the words told him to. Within it he found the ring which he had given to the queen, inside of which were written words which no one but he and she knew.
“Where did this come from?” said he; but nobody could tell him.
“Where the ring came from,” said he, “there will the queen be found.” And up he got from his bed and dressed himself, and ate his breakfast with a cheerful face.
They talked about what had happened down in the kitchen, and the white dove heard it all.