"'Yes; there's a little beggar boy.'
"'Well,' said the king, 'let him come on deck.'
"So when he came, and heard what the king wanted, he said he thought he might cure her; and then the captain got so wrath and mad with rage that he ran round and round like a squirrel in a cage, for he thought the boy was only putting himself forward to do something in which he was sure to fail, and he told the king not to listen to such childish chatter.
"But the king only said that wit came as children grew, and that there was the making of a man in every bairn. The boy had said he could do it, and he might as well try. After all, there were many who had tried and failed before him. So he took him home to his daughter, and the lad sang an hymn once. Then the princess could lift her arm. Once again he sang it, and she could sit up in bed. And when he had sung it thrice the king's daughter was as well as you and I are.
"The king was so glad, he wanted to give him half his kingdom and the princess to wife.
"'Yes,' said the lad, 'land and power were fine things to have half of, and was very grateful; but as for the princess, he was betrothed to another,' he said, 'and he could not take her to wife.'
"So he stayed there awhile, and got half the kingdom; and when he had not been very long there, war broke out, and the lad went out to battle with the rest, and you may fancy he did not spare the black edge of his sword. The enemy's soldiers fell before him like flies, and the king won the day. But when they had conquered, he turned the white edge, and they all rose up alive and became the king's soldiers, who had granted them their lives. But then there were so many of them that they were badly off for food, though the king wished to send them away full, both of meat and drink. So the lad had to bring out his table-cloth, and then there was not a man that lacked anything.
"Now when he had lived a little longer with the king, he began to long to see the lord mayor's daughter. So he fitted out four ships of war and set sail; and when he came off the town where the lord mayor lived, he fired off his cannon like thunder, till half the panes of glass in the town were shivered. On board those ships everything was as grand as in a king's palace; and as for himself, he had gold on every seam of his coat, so fine he was. It was not long before the lord mayor came down to the shore and asked if the foreign lord would not be so good as to come up and dine with him. 'Yes, he would go,' he said; and so he went up to the mansion-house where the lord mayor lived, and there he took his seat between the lady mayoress and her daughter.
"So as they sat there in the greatest state, and ate and drank and were merry, he threw the half of the ring into the daughter's glass, and no one saw it; but she was not slow to find out what he meant, and excused herself from the feast and went out and fitted his half to her half. Her mother saw there was something in the wind and hurried after her as fast as she could.
"'Do you know who that is in there, mother?' said the daughter.