“Well, mother, go and tell the King that you will make one. I’ll manage it for you,” said Prince Ivan.
So the old woman immediately dressed herself, and hastened to the King, and said:
“Please, your Majesty, I will make the wedding ring.”
“Make it, then, make it, mother! Such people as you are welcome,” said the king. “But if you don’t make it, off goes your head!”
The old woman was dreadfully frightened; she ran home, and told Prince Ivan to set to work at the ring. But Ivan lay down to sleep, troubling himself very little about it. The ring was there all the time. So he only laughed at the old woman, but she was trembling all over, and crying, and scolding him.
“As for you,” she said, “you’re out of the scrape; but you’ve done for me, fool that I was!”
The old woman cried and cried until she fell asleep. Early in the morning Prince Ivan got up and awakened her, saying:
“Get up, mother, and go out! take them the ring, and mind, don’t accept more than one ducat for it. If anyone asks who made the ring, say you made it yourself; don’t say a word about me.”
The old woman was overjoyed and carried off the ring. The bride was delighted with it.
“Just what I wanted,” she said. So they gave the old woman a dish full of gold, but she took only one ducat.