So the fiddler came up, in his dirty, ragged clothes, and sang before the King and his daughter. When he had ended he asked for a trifling gift.
The King said, “Your song has pleased me so well that I will give you my daughter there, to wife.”
The King’s Daughter shuddered, but the King said, “I have taken an oath to give you to the very first beggar man, and I will keep it.”
All she could say was in vain; the priest was brought, and she had to let herself be wedded to the fiddler on the spot.
When that was done the King said, “Now it is not proper for you, a beggar woman, to stay any longer in my palace, you may go away with your husband.”
The beggar man led her out by the hand, and she was obliged to go away on foot with him. When they came to a large forest she asked, “To whom does that beautiful forest belong?”
“It belongs to King Thrushbeard. If you had taken him, it would have been yours.”
“WELL,” SHE LAUGHED, “HE HAS A CHIN LIKE A THRUSH’S BEAK”
“Ah, unhappy girl that I am! If I had but taken King Thrushbeard!”