When the king heard that, he ordered him to be led into the room where the girl was, and made her immediately bathe in the water. After a day and a night the the girl came out pure and healthy.
Then the king was greatly pleased, and gave the young prince the half of his kingdom, and also his daughter for a wife, so that he became the king’s son-in-law, and the first man after him in the kingdom.
The tidings of this great event spread all over the world, and so came to the ears of the unjust brother. He guessed directly that his blind brother must have met with good fortune under the pine-tree, so he went himself to try to find it also. He carried with him a vessel full of water, and then carved out his own eyes with his knife. When it was dark the fairies came again, and, as they bathed, spoke about the recovery of the king’s daughter. ‘It cannot be otherwise,’ they said, ‘someone must have been listening to our last conversation here. Perhaps someone is listening now. Let us see.’
So they searched all around, and when they came to the pine-tree they found there the unjust brother who had come to seek after good fortune, and who declared always that injustice was better than justice. They immediately caught him, and tore him into four parts.
And so, at the last, his wickedness did not help him, and he found to his cost that justice is better than injustice.
SATAN’S JUGGLINGS AND GOD’S MIGHT.
ONE morning the son of the king went out to hunt. Whilst walking through the snow he cut himself a little, and the drops of blood fell on the snow. When he saw how pretty the red blood looked on the white snow, he thought, ‘Oh, if I could only marry a girl as white as snow and as rosy red as this blood!’ Whilst he was thus thinking, he met an old woman and asked her if there were such maidens anywhere to be found. The old woman told him that on the mountain he saw before him he would find a house without doors, and the only entrance and outlet of this house was a single window. And she added, ‘In that house, my son, there is living a girl such as you desire; but of the young men who have gone to ask her to be their wife none have returned.’
‘That may all be as you say,’ answered the prince, ‘I will go, nevertheless! Only tell me the way that I must take to get to the house.’ When the old woman heard this resolve, she was sorry for the young man, and, taking a piece of bread from her pouch, she gave it to him, saying, ‘Take this bread and keep it safe as the apple of your eye!’ The prince took the bread, and continued his journey. Very soon afterwards he met another old woman, and she asked him where he was going. He told her he was going to demand the girl who lived in the doorless house on the mountain. Then the old woman tried to dissuade him, telling him just the same things as the former one had done. He said, however, ‘That may be quite true, nevertheless I will go, even if I never return.’ Then the old woman gave to the prince a little nut, saying, ‘Keep this nut always by you; it may help you some time or other!’
The prince took the nut and went on his way, till he came to where an old woman was sitting by the roadside. She asked him, ‘Where are you going?’ Then he told her he was going to demand the girl who lived in the house on the mountain before him. Upon this the old woman wept, and prayed him to give up all thoughts of the girl, and she gave him the very same warnings as the other old women had done. All this however was of no use, the prince was resolved to go on, so the old woman gave him a walnut, saying, ‘Take this walnut, and keep it carefully until you want it.’