She was sitting at the well's side as he left her, but the king's son was not coming. In the mouth of night she climbed up into a tree of oak that was beside the well, and she lay in the fork of that tree all night. A shoemaker had a house near the well, and about midday on the morrow, the shoemaker asked his wife to go for a drink for him out of the well. When the shoemaker's wife reached the well, and when she saw the shadow of her that was in the tree, thinking it was her own shadow—and she never thought till now that she was so handsome—she gave a cast to the dish that was in her hand, and it was broken on the ground, and she took herself to the house without vessel or water.
"Where is the water, wife?" said the shoemaker.
"You shambling, contemptible old carle, without grace, I have stayed too long your water and wood thrall."
"I think, wife, that you have turned crazy. Go you, daughter, quickly, and fetch a drink for your father."
His daughter went, and in the same way so it happened to her. She never thought till now that she was so lovable, and she took herself home.
"Up with the drink," said her father.
"You home-spun shoe carle, do you think I am fit to be your thrall?"
The poor shoemaker thought that they had taken a turn in their understandings, and he went himself to the well. He saw the shadow of the maiden in the well, and he looked up to the tree, and he sees the finest woman he ever saw.
"Your seat is wavering, but your face is fair," said the shoemaker. "Come down, for there is need of you for a short while at my house."
The shoemaker understood that this was the shadow that had driven his people mad. The shoemaker took her to his house, and he said that he had but a poor bothy, but that she should get a share of all that was in it.