‘Where is the dinner?’ exclaimed the king, as he looked over the empty table to which he had brought his bride, still wrapt up in her thick veils.
‘Please your Majesty, the dinner is all burnt up as black as charcoal,’ said the chamberlain; ‘and the cook sits in the kitchen so fast asleep that no one can wake him.’
‘Go and fetch me a dinner from the inn,’ said the king; ‘and the cook, when he comes to himself, let him be brought before me.’
After a time the cook came to himself, and the chamberlain brought him before the king.
‘Tell me how this happened,’ said the king to the cook. ‘All these years you have served me well and faithfully; how is it that to-day, when the dinner should have been of the best in honour of my bride, everything is burnt up, and the king’s table is left empty?’
‘Indeed, the dinner had been of the best, Sire,’ answered the cook. ‘So had I prepared it. Only, when all was nearly ready, there came a dove flying in at the window, and flew three times round my head, singing each time,
Cook of the royal kitchen,
What shall we do with the Queen?
Sleep ye all soundly, and burnt be the meal
Which on the King’s board should have been.