“All the summer through have I loved and watched you, king’s daughter,” said the kelpie, as he stood before her in his proper shape, “and now you must live with me in my palace, and be my wife.”
Pearly white and very fair to see was the palace of the water-kelpie, with its towers and minarets, and a great white dome in the midst, and within, the walls were hung with iridescent tapestries. Here the princess was held a prisoner, and day after day she would sit under the magical milk-white dome, and weep till she had no more tears to shed. But wed the water-kelpie she would not. Her happiest hours were when he left her to roam the hills under the shape of the black horse, and then she would pace to and fro in her beautiful prison-house and call to mind the peaceful days in the shepherd’s cottage, and the young apprentice whom in her secret heart she loved, though because she was a king’s daughter she was too proud to own it to anybody but herself.
Meanwhile the cobbler had won for himself a great reputation by his skill in shoe-making, for those who wore his shoes could walk for leagues or dance for whole nights together without growing tired, so that before long his fame reached the ears of the king, who summoned him to the palace. Now, as soon as the cobbler found himself in the presence of the king and queen, he made haste to tell them of his meeting with the princess, and of what the old crone had told them.
“It may be as you say,” said the king, “and glad indeed should I be to think that my child is no witch, but only dowered above other mortals, for so great is my fear of witchcraft that I would sooner have my palace pillaged from end to end than suffer any about me who have eyes for uncanny sights.”
“I fear we have done our daughter a great wrong,” said the queen sorrowfully, “and none of us knows the cause of the fairies’ displeasure, nor the remedy for it. We have called in the Prime Minister, and the Lord High Chamberlain, and the Keeper of the Great Seal, and the Lords and Ladies of the Bedchamber, but they are all utterly at a loss.”
Then an idea came to the cobbler. “Madam,” said he, “was there by chance any blackthorn brought into the palace last spring?”
“I do not know,” replied the queen, “but it shall be inquired into.”
So the entire court and household were assembled, and a strict inquiry was made. Then it was that the lowest scullery-maid in the royal kitchen confessed that she had broken off a spray from a blackthorn hedge in the foregoing spring, and had placed it in her attic room. So the king, at the cobbler’s advice, published a proclamation, forbidding the breaking of blackthorn throughout the realm, but to the cobbler himself he said; “Do you go and fetch my daughter back, for we will receive her with due honour, and if she be willing you shall have her hand in marriage. As for the waiting-woman who accused her to me, she shall be dismissed the kingdom.”
Then the cobbler set out and made his way back to the shepherd’s cottage, but when he reached it the good man and his wife told him of how the princess had left them, and that they had had no tidings of her since. “But if you are in search of her,” said the shepherd’s wife, “take with you this jewelled cross and restore it to her, for she gave it to the old granddame who is now dead, and it is not ours that we should keep it.” So the cobbler took the cross, and continued his journey.
Now as he passed by the lonely tarn he heard a voice singing, and recognised that same plaintive refrain which the princess had sung when first he met her on the hillside.