Then the proud Lord fell sick, of the sickness that chained him to his bed so long and put his wife's patience to so stern a proof. The day he was well and arose from his bed he did not know himself again; the sickness had disfigured him and taken away his hair.
He suffered and brooded over it. Then one morning he said:
"Now you cannot love me any more."
But his wife threw her arms about him, blushing, and kissed him as passionately as in the springtime of their youth and answered:
"I love you, love you still. I will never forget that it was I and no other whom you chose and made so happy."
And she went into her chamber and cut off all her yellow hair, to be like her husband whom she loved.
And again many, many years went by, the young couple were now old and their children were grown up. They shared every happiness as before; in summer they still walked in the fields and saw the waving grass and in the winter they wrapped themselves in furs and drove beneath the starry sky. And their hearts continued warm and glad as with a marvellous wine.
The Lady was paralysed. The old Lady could not walk, she had to be drawn in a wheeled chair and the Lord himself drew her. But the Lady suffered so unspeakably from her misfortune and her face was deeply furrowed with sorrow.
Then she said one day:
"Now I would gladly die. I am so helpless and ugly and your face is so handsome, you cannot kiss me any more and you cannot love me as you used."