“With all my heart, prince,” replied the weaver. “Whither shall we go?”
“Let us go to the palace garden,” said the prince, “so that I may sing my sweetest beneath my lady’s window.”
So day after day they flew over mountain and valley, till they reached the city where the princess lived, and that same night as she leant forth from her casement, she heard two nightingales singing, more sweetly and more sorrowfully than any hitherto. The weaver sang of his lost love, and the prince made known to her all the toil and peril he had suffered for her sake.
“Ah me, poor prince, would that I might disenchant you!” said she.
“Your love would disenchant me!” cried the prince.
“Not so,” the princess made answer, “remember the fairy’s curse. Alas, it was just on such a night as this that I stood at my window and watched the fairies making merry on the greensward. Then it was that the desire took hold of me to become queen of their revels, so that I too might wear the blackthorn and the fatal green, and till that desire is laid to rest there is no room in my thoughts for love. I know no peace of mind through the longing that I have for the elfin crown, and it may be that I also am enchanted, even as you.” So saying she wept bitterly, and the nightingales hushed their singing for very sorrow.
Now the next night the princess could not sleep for thought of the crown, so she went down into the dewy, dusky garden, and wandered in and out among the flowers. She was all in white, with a jewelled dagger in her hair, and as the prince watched her, his heart nearly broke for love of her beauty.
All at once the trumpets of the honeysuckle blew a blast, and over the greensward the fairies came trooping, with the elfin king and his train in their midst. For a while the princess stood apart, sadly and silently watching the revelry, but at last she stepped forward with clasped hands and beseeching eyes, and, as it chanced, it was to Micheline that she spoke: “I pray you, sweet fay, teach me to dance as beautifully as yourself.”
“And if I do,” said Micheline, “will you give me in exchange the precious thing that sparkles so royally in your hair?”
“That will I gladly,” quoth the princess, and she drew forth the jewelled dagger, and gave it to the fairy. “Only see that you handle it carefully,” said she, “for it carries death at its point, for all it is so bright and beautiful.”