The Tsaritsa wept and implored. She offered the merchant her pearls and every other gem she had if he would but let her keep the ring, but he refused.
“Very well, then, it shall be neither thine nor mine,” cried the Tsaritsa, and she drew the ring from her finger and dashed it against the wall.
At once the ring changed into a hundred millet seeds and was scattered all over the floor.
But the Green One as quickly changed himself into a cock and ran about this way and that, pecking up the millet seeds and swallowing them. Ninety-nine millet seeds he found and ate, but the hundredth he did not find, because it had fallen beside the Tsaritsa’s foot, and the hem of her robe covered it.
As soon as the cock had swallowed the ninety-ninth seed he sprang upon the window sill, and stretched his neck and crowed with triumph.
But the hundredth seed was really the lad, and in that moment he changed himself back into his human form, and before the cock knew what had happened, he caught hold of it and wrung its neck and that was the end of Oh and his magic.
As for the Tsaritsa, no sooner had she seen the lad than her heart went out to him, and she loved him even better than she had her ring, and she declared that he and he only should be her husband.
The Tsar did not know what to say to that, for it did not seem fitting that his daughter should marry a common man. But the Tsaritsa begged and plead with him till he could no longer withstand her.
So she and the lad were married with great pomp and magnificence.
His old father and mother were bidden to the wedding, and they could hardly believe their eyes when they saw their son stand there in those costly robes with a crown upon his head and the Tsaritsa beside him as his bride.