"So when the king came and set eyes on the ugly swarthy kitchen-maid, he turned white and red; but when he heard how they said she was the loveliest in twelve kingdoms, he thought he could not help believing there must be something in it; and besides he felt for poor Taper Tom, who had taken so much pains to get her for him.
"'She'll get better, perhaps, as time goes on,' he thought, 'when she is dressed smartly, and wears fine clothes;' and so he took her home with him.
"Then they sent for all the wig-makers and needlewomen, and she was dressed and clad like a princess; but for all they washed and dressed her, she was still as ugly and black as ever.
"After a while the kitchen-maid was to go to the dam to fetch water, and then she caught a great silver fish in her bucket. She bore it up to the palace, and showed it to the king, and he thought it grand and fine; but the ugly princess said it was some witchcraft, and they must burn it, for she soon saw what it was. Well! the fish was burnt, and next morning they found a lump of silver in the ashes. So the cook came and told it to the king, and he thought it passing strange; but the princess said it was all witchcraft, and bade them bury it in the dung-heap. The king was much against it; but she left him neither rest nor peace, and so he said at last they might do it.
"But lo! next day stood a tall lovely linden tree on the spot where they had buried the lump of silver, and that linden had leaves which gleamed like silver. So when they told the king that, he thought it passing strange; but the princess said it was nothing but witchcraft, and they must cut down the linden at once. The king was against that; but the princess plagued him so long that at last he had to give way to her in this also.
"But lo! when the lasses went out to gather the chips of the linden to light the fires, they were pure silver.
"'It isn't worth while,' one of them said, 'to say anything about this to the king or the princess, or else they, too, will be burnt and melted. It is better to hide them in our drawers. They will be good to have when a lover comes, and we are going to marry.'
"Yes! They were all of one mind as to that; but when they had borne the chips a while, they grew so fearfully heavy that they could not help looking to see what it was; and then they found the chips had been changed into a child, and it was not long before it grew into the loveliest princess you ever set eyes on.
"The lasses could see very well that something wrong lay under all this. So they got her clothes, and flew off to find the lad, who was to fetch the loveliest princess in twelve kingdoms, and told him their story.
"So when Taper Tom came, the princess told him her story, and how the cook had come and torn her from the tree and thrown her into the dam; and how she had been the silver fish, and the silver lump, and the linden, and the chips, and how she was the true princess.