It was no good arguing. So the king invited all his courtiers and prepared a splendid banquet. When the banquet was finished, the queen said to the king: “Before we part, you must drink this glass of wine to my health,” and she had put some opium into the wine on the sly.
The king drank it at a draught and fell asleep at once. A carriage was got ready, and the queen put the king in it and drove to her father’s old hut. There she laid the king on the straw, and, when he woke up, he asked where he was.
“You are with me. Didn’t you tell me that I could take the thing I liked best with me?”
The king saw how clever she was, and he said: “Now you can give advice to anybody you like.”
And so they drove home again, and he was king and she queen again.
THE SOLDIER AND THE DEVIL
A discharged soldier was going home. He had only threepence in his pocket. As he was going through a forest he met a beggar. The beggar asked him for a penny. The soldier gave him one, and went on his way. Then he met another beggar. This beggar was very ill, and he asked the soldier for a penny. So the soldier gave him the other penny. Then he met a third beggar. This beggar was half-dead. The soldier took pity on him and gave him the third penny. Soon after he had left the forest our Lord appeared to him, and in return for those three pennies He granted him three boons. For the first boon the soldier chose a pipe that should be full of tobacco whenever he wished, so that he might always have a smoke handy. The second boon he asked was that, if he wanted to put any one in his knapsack, they should be in it as soon as he said: “Leap into that knapsack.” The third boon was that his purse should be full of gold coins whenever he knocked on it.
Our Lord said: “So be it!”
Soon afterwards he came to a mill and asked for a night’s lodging. They said that they only had one room for themselves; the other one was haunted by a devil every midnight. But the soldier wasn’t afraid. He said that they could leave him there alone; he didn’t mind a bit.