He then took a chain and fastened it around her waist and to a staple in the wall. He placed food and drink within reach and an empty bowl before her. “When you have filled this bowl full of tears of repentance, the chain will drop from you,” he said, “and you will be free; but until that time you shall remain a prisoner.”
He then went away and left her, and the animals followed at his heels.
He went on and on until he came to another country, and there he stopped at an inn for food and rest. But there was little feasting at the inn, or resting either. Every one was weeping and lamenting. The food had burned on the fire, and the malt had all run out of the barrels and was wasted.
The Prince called to the landlord and asked him the cause of all this sorrow.
“A sad and grievous cause, indeed,” replied the landlord. “This day the King’s daughter is to be sacrificed to a mighty dragon that is to come up out of the water. She must be left on the seashore over beyond the cliffs you see yonder, for him to devour her; and unless this is done, the dragon will ravage the whole country.”
“But is there no one strong enough and brave enough to destroy this dragon?” asked the Prince.
“There is no one. Many have come hither to try it, for the King has promised that if any one will do battle with the dragon and destroy him, he shall have the hand of the Princess in marriage, and she is so beautiful, that any man might well risk death to gain her. But every one who has seen the dragon as he lies out in the sea has been so filled with terror that he has fled away. Not one has stayed even to look upon him twice.”
When the Prince heard this he made up his mind that he would at least have a look at the dragon, so he asked the landlord how he must go to reach the place where the monster lay. As soon as he had been told, off he set in that direction, and the animals were not far behind him.
It did not take him long to reach the seashore and when he looked off across the water he could see the dragon lying there. He was so long that his back looked like an island, and from his nostrils rose up streams of smoke that were full of fiery cinders.
The Prince hid himself behind a heap of rocks and lay there watching, and presently he heard a great noise. It was made by a procession of people who were bringing the Princess down to the seashore. She was very beautiful, but so sad looking that the Prince’s heart melted within him for pity of her.