Neither could the king make out what kind of creature it was; so he told the huntsmen to put a chain on it, and bring it to the palace.
When they got home to the palace, everyone was astonished at the appearance of the creature the huntsmen had with them, and they called out with such loud exclamations that the queen, who was ill in bed, heard them, and she asked what it was about. When they told her, she was seized with a violent desire to see the creature. But they said she must by no means see it, being ill; but the more they opposed her wish, the more vehement she was to see it, till, at last, the nurses said it would do more harm to continue refusing her than to let her see it.
So they led the creature by the chain into her room, and placed him by her bedside.
When the queen saw him, she said, ‘This is no four-footed beast, but a man, like one of you.’ And she spoke to him, and asked him to say who he was; but he had lost the use of speech, and could not answer her.
Then the baby that was lying on the pillow by her side, just born, raised its head, and said out loud, so that all could hear, in a voice plain and clear—
‘Giovanni Bocca d’oro, God hath forgiven thee thy sins and iniquities.’
The queen was yet more astonished when she heard her new-born babe speak thus, and she asked St. John what it could mean. When she saw he could not answer her, she ordered that they should give him pen and paper.
Then, though they gave him a common pen, all he wrote appeared in letters of shining gold, and he wrote down all that I have told you. Moreover, he bid them send to the well where he had thrown the body of the princess, and fetch her back.
When they had done so, they found her whole and sound, and only a little cicatriced wound in her throat. Then they asked her in astonishment how she had lived in that dark, damp well all these years.
But she answered, ‘Every day there came to me a beautiful Roman matron in shining apparel, and she brought me food and consoled me, and after she had been there the well was bright, and sweet, and perfumed.’ And they knew that it must have been the Madonna.