But Fertram humbly begged her to release him. As she did so, she looked up at him.
“Do you not recognize me?” she said.
“No,” replied Fertram, much astonished. “I have never seen you before, I am certain.”
“Perhaps, then, I remind you of some one?” she asked again. “Of Hildur, the king’s daughter, who brought you back to your kingdom?”
“No,” he said again, more puzzled still; “I never even remember hearing the name of Hildur.”
Then Hildur went and fetched the little box of ointment, and directly she rubbed it on his hands and face, his past life came back to him. He embraced Hildur again and again, thanking her for all she had done for him, and asking her to forgive his apparent coldness and forgetfulness.
“You, and you alone, have had my love all this time, at any rate,” he said; “for I could love no one else. And you alone shall be my queen.”
Sitting down together in the early morning sunshine under one of the great forest trees, Hildur told him what he did not know; namely, that the beautiful girl whom his mother had taken into the palace was really her old grandmother. She had followed them, and transformed herself so that Fertram should marry her. Then she meant to kill him and his mother, and seize the kingdom.
“So far I have guarded you from her wicked schemes,” Hildur said, laying her hand on his; “but, knowing that the past was no longer in your mind, I have feared each day that she might succeed in winning you. For had you been unfaithful to me, I could no longer have done anything for you against her wiles.”
Again and again Fertram thanked her; then he bade her a tender farewell, and went straight back to the city. The great council of the kingdom was summoned, and to them the young king disclosed the real history of the wicked grandmother. But she was too cunning to be caught and punished. Divining what had happened, she disappeared amid a cloud of fire and smoke.