At last came a little bird with a maimed wing; in its beak was the little crooked pearl, for this, too, had been threaded on the necklace.
Blanzeflor sat perfectly still and let the pearls lie upon her knees, for she could not touch them with her fettered hands. Then the sun rose red in the East and shone into the prison so that it streamed with light like heaven itself.
But just then the king came in with all his retinue. He had come to take the queen away to be beheaded. But when he saw her sitting with a halo of light around her and with the pearls in her lap, he stood stock-still with amazement. Then he began to count the pearls, and every single one was there, all three hundred and sixty-five, even to the little crooked one! But the silken cord on which they had been strung was missing.
Away went the king hobbling up the stairs to his own apartments to fetch a new silken cord. He was afraid to ask anyone else to go for it because he feared they would steal something.
When the king had snipped off his cord he hurried back so quickly down to the prison again, that he tripped over his own feet and fell and broke his neck, and there he lay dead on his way down to the dungeons where he had let so many innocent people suffer and pine to death.
The king was buried, and the queen was proclaimed the only reigning sovereign in all the land.
And never was there a gentler queen than she. If any one was in any trouble or distress they simply said:
“We shall go to the queen, there is sure to be one more pearl left on her Majesty’s necklace!”
Robin Hood and Sir Richard-at-the-Lee[25]
Listen, and I will tell you about a good yeoman whose name was Robin Hood. All his life he was a proud outlaw, but so courteous an outlaw as he was never found, and he would never do any harm to a company in which there was a woman, for he held all women in great respect and honor.