“Take care,” said Joringel, “that you do not go too near the castle.”
It was a beautiful evening. The sun shone brightly between the trunks of the trees into the dark green of the forest, and the turtledoves sang mournfully upon the young boughs of the birch-trees.
Jorinda wept now and then. She sat down in the sunshine and was sorrowful. Joringel was sorrowful too. They were as sad as if they were about to die. Then they looked around them, and were quite at a loss, for they did not know by which way to go home. The sun was half above the mountain and half set.
Joringel looked through the bushes, and saw the old walls of the castle close at hand. He was horror-stricken and filled with deadly fear.
Jorinda was singing:
“My little Bird, with the necklace red,
Sings sorrow, sorrow, sorrow,
He sings that the Dove must soon be dead,
Sings sorrow, sor——jug, jug, jug!”
Joringel looked for Jorinda. She was changed into a Nightingale, and sang “jug, jug, jug!”
A screech-owl with glowing eyes flew three times round about her, and three times cried, “to-whoo, to-whoo, to-whoo!”
Joringel could not move. He stood there like a stone, and could neither weep nor speak, nor move hand or foot.
The sun had now set. The owl flew into the thicket. Directly afterward there came out of it a crooked Old Woman, yellow and lean, with large red eyes and a hooked nose, the point of which reached to her chin. She muttered to herself, caught the Nightingale, and took it away in her hand.