“O make haste, make haste!” cried the princess; “see, he is in sight!” Fleetly down the steep hillside the black horse came galloping, with streaming mane and glaring eyes.
“We are lost!” cried the princess, and indeed the horse was already upon them, and had caught the fringe of her cloak in its mouth. But in that same instant the cobbler slipped on his second shoe, and he and the princess sped away together like birds upon the wing. But the embroidered cloak they left behind between the horse’s teeth.
Over land and ocean they went, yet felt no weariness, and at nightfall they reached the brown bog country, studded with innumerable pools, and every pool bathed a star. The moon was rising, and from all the four winds the fairies came trooping, elves and gnomes and pixies, brownies and hobgoblins, with the fairy queen and her retinue in their midst, and at a little distance the cobbler and the princess stood and watched them assemble. At last one dainty elf came towards them, in dress of pearly gossamer, and in her yellow hair a wreath of starry white flowers, such as you may see for yourself on the window-pane any frosty day.
“I owe you thanks for many a past kindness,” said she to the cobbler.
“Yet I have never seen you till this moment, elf lady,” he replied.
“Are you so sure of that?” laughed she; “look well, look well at my eyes.” Then the cobbler looked long and earnestly, and indeed they were wondrous eyes, green and glimmering, nor were they like the eyes of any mortal.
“Every hundred years,” said the elf, “we fairies must take the shape of some beast or bird or fish for the space of a year and a day, and if we die during that time we perish, for we have no souls. Now I was the cobbler’s yellow cat when my turn came, and you befriended me in my exile. But follow me, and I will take you to the fairy queen, that you may tell her on what errand you are come to-night.”
Then she led them through a throng of fairies, amongst whom the cobbler recognised his enemy the boggart, and the princess the three fairies who had filched the almond blossom, and lured away the peacock, and broken the flax. Presently they reached the steps of the elfin throne, and here both knelt to the fairy queen.
“For what purpose have you sought us out?” asked she.
“I come to appease your displeasure, greatest of all queens,” replied the princess, “for in the spring time a spray of blackthorn was heedlessly broken and brought into our palace, and since that day the fairies have borne us a grudge. How may we turn away their anger?”