THE CHICORY-SELLER AND THE ENCHANTED PRINCESS.[1]
There was a chicory-seller, with a wife and a son, all of them dying of hunger, and sleeping on the floor because they couldn’t afford a bed. Once when they went out in the morning to gather chicory, the son found such a large plant of it, never was such a plant seen, it took them an hour, working at it together, to pull it up, and it filled two great bags. What is more, when they had got it all up, there was a great hole in the ground.
‘What can there be down in that hole?’ said the son. ‘I must go and see!’ In he jumped,[2] and down he went.
Suddenly he found himself in the midst of a splendid palace, and a number of obsequious servants gathered round him. They all bowed to the ground, and said,
‘Your lordship! your lordship!’ and asked him what he ‘pleased to want.’
So there he was, dressed like a clodhopper, and all these servants dressed like princes, bowing and scraping to him.
‘What do I want?’ said the lad; ‘most of all, I want a dinner.’
Immediately they brought him a banquet of a dinner, and waited on him all the time. Dinner over, they dressed him like a prince.
By-and-by there came in an ugly old hag, as ugly as a witch, who said,