“My father is a king, and you will marry me and succeed him. But my father dwells far from here, and we will go to him. Do you take this ring here.”
So they went off. When the wedding was to take place, John wanted his parents to be present, so he asked the princess: “May I go to see my parents? I would like them to be at our wedding.”
The princess answered: “They live a great way from us, but you will be able to get to them. The ring I gave you has the property that, when you turn it on your finger and wish to go a hundred miles, you will cover that distance in a moment. On your way you will come to a king who has a beautiful daughter. But you must not think of her nor of me, for then you will lose the ring, and you will not be able to go any farther.”
John started. He turned the ring, and in a moment he was a hundred miles off, and found himself with a king who had several sons. They entertained him splendidly. Then he came to another king who had an only daughter, and she was very vulgar. The king insisted that John should marry her. John thought: “What are you thinking of, my man? My bright one is so beautiful that there is not her equal in the wide world, while your daughter is only a vulgar creature.” At the moment he thought of his bride the ring slipped from his finger and disappeared.
John left them then. He was very sad, and considered what he should do. “My bride is far away now,” he thought. “I cannot find my way either to her or to my parents.”
As he was walking along in this sad mood, he thought of his cloak, and it came into his mind that, if he could reach the Sun’s abode the same day, he could ask where his bride’s castle was. As soon as he thought of this he was at the Sun’s house. The Sun was not in; only his housekeeper was at home. He asked her for a lodging, and said that he would like to ask the Sun whether he knew the castle where his bride dwelt. She gave him the lodging. When the Sun returned home in the evening, John asked him whether he had any knowledge of the castle in which his wife dwelt. The Sun answered: “I don’t know. I never shone there. But go and ask the Moon.”
The next day, as soon as he woke, he flew off on his cloak to the Moon’s castle. When he got there, the Moon was not in, and John asked the housekeeper for a night’s lodging. He said he would like to ask the Moon’s advice.
The housekeeper said: “You must wait till the Moon comes home, but you will be very cold, for my mistress is an extremely cold person.”
“I will crouch in a corner and wait till the mistress comes; in any case, my cloak is warm enough.”
When the morning drew near, the Moon returned home, and John asked her whether she knew where his bride’s castle was.