Fairy Tales from Many Lands

by Katharine Pyle

The girl shook her head and motioned to him to go away. She would have closed the door, but the prince put his sword in it so that she could not. “I am thirsty and I must have the water,” he said.

The girl ran away to get it but when she brought it to him instead of drinking it he threw it in her face. Then the black all washed off, and she stood there, more beautiful than anyone the prince had ever seen before. “Who are you, and how do you happen to be living in this jungle all alone?” he asked. But the girl would not answer. She only shook her head again and wept, for she thought to herself, “If they mean any harm to me and I tell them I have a sister they will wait here until she returns, and she will suffer too.”

When the prince found she would answer nothing he mounted her on his horse and carried her away with him, for she was so very beautiful that he determined to make her his wife.

Now the girl had around her neck a string of pink pearls, and she managed to break the string without being seen, and to drop the pearls one at a time as they rode along. For she thought, “When my sister comes home and finds me gone she will hunt for me, and if she sees the pearls she will know in which direction I have gone and will follow.”

So they rode on and after a time they reached the palace where the prince’s parents lived. When they saw what a beautiful girl their son brought home with him they were amazed, and because of her great beauty they were willing for the prince to take her for a wife.

The girl, too, was willing, for the prince was both handsome and kind, so they were married, and loved each other tenderly. The girl now would have been quite happy if she had not remembered Balna and grieved for her. Often when she was alone she began to weep for her, and always when the prince came in he would ask her why she was crying, but she would not tell him. She was afraid if she so did he would be very angry that she had not told him before, and so she made some excuse. Always she thought to herself, “The next time I will tell him,” but always she was afraid. Her courage failed her.

Now when Balna returned to the palace and found her sister gone she was in despair. She sought for her everywhere, calling her name. Then she began to hunt about in the jungle for signs of robbers who might have been there while she was away, and she found one of the pink pearls that she knew belonged to her sister’s necklace. She went a little further and found another, and then another, and still another. So she went on through the jungle, following the way her sister had gone, and picking up the pearls as she went.

That night she came to a stream, and lying beside it was the body of an old woman. The body was so dried by the sun that nothing of it was left except skin and bones. Balna took off the skin and washed it carefully in the brook, and then drew it on over her head and arms as if it had been a glove. When she had done that she looked exactly like an old woman with wrinkled face and arms.

The next day she came to the edge of the jungle, and she saw before her houses and a magnificent palace with gardens about it. She now took a staff in her hand and began to hobble along as though she were a very old woman indeed.