Then the girl took the dish to the mother, and was glad, and believed that now she would be allowed to go with them to the feast.
But the mother said, “No, Ash-Maiden, you have no clothes and you cannot dance. You would only be laughed at.”
And as Ash-Maiden wept at this, the mother said, “If you can pick two dishes of lentils out of the ashes for me in one hour, you shall go with us.” And she thought to herself, “That she most certainly cannot do.”
When the mother had emptied the two dishes of lentils amongst the ashes, the maiden went through the back-door into the garden and cried, “You tame Pigeons, you Turtledoves, and all you birds under heaven, come and help me to pick
“The good into the pot,
The bad into the crop!”
Then two white pigeons came in by the kitchen-window, and afterward the turtledoves. And at last all the birds beneath the sky came whirring and crowding in, and alighted amongst the ashes. And the doves nodded with their heads and began pick, pick, pick, pick, and the others began also pick, pick, pick, pick, and gathered all the good seeds into the dishes. And before half an hour was over they had already finished, and all flew out again.
Then the maiden carried the dishes to the mother and was delighted, and believed that she might now go with them to the feast.
But the mother said, “All this will not help you. You go not with us, for you have no clothes and cannot dance. We should be ashamed of you!”
Then she turned her back on Ash-Maiden, and hurried away with her two proud daughters.
As no one was now at home, Ash-Maiden went to her mother’s grave beneath the hazel-tree, and cried: