She took off her cross, leaped into the ice-hole—and found herself in a vast hall. In it Satan[465] was seated. And when he saw her arrive, he asked her husband whom he had brought with him.
“This is my wife,” replied the youth.
“Well then, if she is thy wife, get thee gone hence with her! married folks must not be sundered.”[466]
So the wife rescued her husband, and brought him back from the devils into the free light.[467]
Sometimes it is a victim’s own imprudence, and not a parent’s “hasty word,” which has placed him in the power of the Evil One. There is a well-known story, which has spread far and wide over Europe, of a soldier who abstains for a term of years from washing, shaving, and hair-combing, and who serves, or at least obeys, the devil during that time, at the end of which he is rewarded by the fiend with great wealth. His appearance being against him, he has some difficulty in finding a wife, rich as he is. But after the elder sisters of a family have refused him, the youngest accepts him; whereupon he allows himself to be cleansed, combed, and dressed in bright apparel, and leads a cleanly and a happy life ever afterwards.[468]
In one of the German versions of this story, a king’s elder daughter, when asked to marry her rich but slovenly suitor, replies, “I would sooner go into the deepest water than do that.” In a Russian version,[469] the unwashed soldier lends a large sum of money to an impoverished monarch, who cannot pay his troops, and asks his royal creditor to give him one of his daughters in marriage by way of recompense. The king reflects. He is sorry for his daughters, but at the same time he cannot do without the money. At last, he tells the soldier to get his portrait painted, and promises to show it to the princesses, and see if one of them will accept him. The soldier has his likeness taken, “touch for touch, just exactly as he is,” and the king shows it to his daughters. The eldest princess sees that “the picture is that of a monster, with dishevelled hair, and uncut nails, and unwiped nose,” and cries:
“I won’t have him! I’d sooner have the devil!”
Now the devil “was standing behind her, pen and paper in hand. He heard what she said, and booked her soul.”
When the second princess is asked whether she will marry the soldier, she exclaims:
“No indeed! I’d rather die an old maid, I’d sooner be linked with the devil, than marry that man!”