And while she was looking at him, and becoming aware that he was young and handsome, he awoke, sat up in bed, and said, “I am a King’s Son, and was enchanted by a wicked Witch, and made to live in this wood, as an old gray-haired man. No one was allowed to be with me but my three attendants in the form of a cock, a hen, and a brindled cow. The spell was not to be broken until a girl came to us, whose heart was so good that she showed herself full of love, not only toward mankind, but toward animals—and that you have done, and by you, at midnight, we were set free, and the old house in the wood was changed back again into my royal palace.”
And when they had arisen, the King’s Son ordered the three attendants to set out and fetch the father and mother of the girl to the marriage feast.
“But where are my two sisters?” inquired the girl.
“I have locked them in the cellar, and to-morrow they shall be led into the wood, and shall live as servants to a charcoal-burner, until they have grown kinder, and do not leave poor animals to suffer hunger.”
MAID MALEEN
There was once a King who had a son who asked in marriage the daughter of a mighty King. She was called Maid Maleen, and was very beautiful. As her father wished to give her to another, the Prince was rejected.
But since they both loved each other with all their hearts, they would not give each other up, and Maid Maleen said to her father, “I can and will take no other for my husband.”