And the princess did nothing but sit and cry and cry; but, as for marrying, she vowed and declared that she would not do that till she had a pair of slippers of pure gold, and a real diamond buckle on each slipper; and nobody in all of the town was able to make the kind that she wanted.
When the fiddler heard all this he went straight to a shoemaker’s shop. “Will you take a journeyman shoemaker?” says he.
“What can you do?” says the master shoemaker.
“I can make a pair of slippers such as the princess wants, only I must have a room all to myself to make them in,” says the fiddler.
When the master shoemaker heard this, he was not long in making up his mind, so the bargain was closed and that settled the business.
As soon as the fiddler was alone he drew out his fiddle and began to play a bit of a jig, and there stood the little black fellow, just as he had done before.
“What do you want?” says he.
“I should like,” said the fiddler, “to have a pair of slippers such as the princess asks for, but I only want one buckle to the pair, and that must be made of real diamonds.”
Oh! that was an easy thing to have, and there were the slippers just as the fiddler had ordered.