“Most certainly,” said the magician, “and if you would know what is her heart’s desire, you need only go and see wherein her heart lies.”
“I go upon the instant!” cried the prince, starting to his feet. Then he entered a great hall adjoining, and there he found the hearts of all men, each beating in its own chosen place. Some lay within coffers of gold, some upon altars, others between the leaves of a book, others again were half smothered beneath a pile of fripperies and tinsel. But the heart of his princess lay within a certain gold crown of strange workmanship.
As soon as he had caught sight of it, the prince drew his sword with its jewelled cross-hilt, and waving it above his head, he cried: “Though I should first have to conquer all the kingdoms of the world, I will win that crown for my lady, no matter whose it be. And then perhaps her heart will turn to me, and she will love me.”
The next day he set forth upon his quest, but as he rode out of the castle gates, he remembered the weaver who was a lover like himself, and meeting a doe in the forest, he said to her: “Run swiftly, pretty doe, and carry a message to my brother the weaver. Tell him of this castle, that he too may come, and learn what it is on which his lady has set her heart.”
So the fleet-footed doe ran till she reached a brook, where she stooped to drink. “O brook,” said she, “hidden in a thicket I have a baby fawn, and I dare not leave it long alone. Bear you the prince’s message to the weaver.”
So the brook took the message, and flowed on through the forest till it became choked with sedges. “O dragonfly,” it said in a stifled voice to a dragonfly that hovered among the flags, “bear you the prince’s message to the weaver.”
Then the dragonfly flew to the weaver’s house, and gave him the prince’s message, and that same day the weaver set out. But when he had reached the castle, and had sought for the heart of Micheline among the rest, he could not find it.
“Since that is so, it means that she is not a mortal,” said the magician, “you must go seek for her in Fairyland.”
“I pray you tell me the way,” said the weaver.
“That I cannot do,” the magician made answer, “each must find the way to Fairyland for himself.”