When the prince saw his mother and father approach, he feigned surprise, and asked why they mourned. They answered that they had lost a son, and therefore they mourned. The prince said: ‘I am your long-lost son.’ The king and queen rejoiced, and took him home. They prepared such a wedding that the roof of the palace resounded with merriment.
XI
Conkiajgharuna[1]
There was and there was not, there was a miserable peasant. He had a wife and a little daughter. So poor was this peasant that his daughter was called Conkiajgharuna (the little girl in rags).
Some time passed, and his wife died. He was unhappy before, but now a greater misfortune had befallen him. He grieved and grieved, and at last he said to himself: ‘I will go and take another wife; she will mind the house, and tend my orphan child.’ So he arose and took a second wife, but this wife brought with her a daughter of her own. When this woman came into her husband’s house and saw his child, she was angry in heart.
She treated Conkiajgharuna badly. She petted her own daughter, but scolded her stepdaughter, and tried to get rid of her. Every day she gave her a piece of badly-cooked bread, and sent her out to watch the cow, saying: ‘Here is a loaf; eat of it, give to every wayfarer, and bring the loaf home whole.’ The girl went, and felt very miserable.
Once she was sitting sadly in the field, and began to weep bitterly. The cow listened, and then opened its mouth, and said: ‘Why art thou weeping? what troubles thee?’ The girl told her sad tale. The cow said: ‘In one of my horns is honey, and in the other is butter, which thou canst take if thou wilt, so why be unhappy?’ The girl took the butter and the honey, and in a short time she grew plump. When the stepmother noticed this she did not know what to do for rage. She rose, and after that every day she gave her a basket of wool with her; this wool was to be spun and brought home in the evening finished. The stepmother wished to tire the girl out with toil, so that she should grow thin and ugly.
Once when Conkiajgharuna was tending the cow, it ran away on to a roof.[2] The girl pursued it, and wished to drive it back to the road, but she dropped her spindle on the roof. Looking inside she saw an old woman seated, and said to her: ‘Good mother, wilt thou give me my spindle?’ The old dame replied: ‘I am not able, my child, come and take it thyself.’ This old woman was a devi.
The girl went in and was lifting up her spindle, when the old dame called out: ‘Daughter, daughter, come and look at my head a moment, I am almost eaten up.’