“Good gracious!” cried the master.” The porcelain maiden and the golden blackbird know you too?”
“Yes,” replied the youth, “and the porcelain maiden can tell you the whole truth if she only will.”
Then she told all that had happened, and how she had consented to follow the young man who had captured the golden blackbird.
“Yes,” added the youth, “I delivered my brothers, who were kept prisoners in an inn, and as a reward they threw me into a lake. So I disguised myself and came here in order to prove the truth to you.
So the old lord embraced his son and promised that he should inherit all his possessions, and he put to death the two elder ones, who had deceived him and had tried to slay their own brother.
The young man married the porcelain maiden and had a splendid wedding feast
THE HALF-CHICK
Retold by Andrew Lang
Once upon a time there was a handsome black Spanish hen who had a large brood of chickens. They were all fine, plump little birds except the youngest, who was quite unlike his brothers and sisters. Indeed, he was such a strange, queer-looking creature that when he first clipped his shell his mother could scarcely believe her eyes, he was so different from the twelve other fluffy, downy, soft little chicks who nestled under her wings. This one looked just as if he had been cut in two. He had only one leg, and one wing, and one eye, and he had half a head and half a beak. His mother shook her head sadly as she looked at him and said:
“My youngest born is only a half-chick. He can never grow up a tall, handsome cock like his brothers. They will go out into the world and rule over poultry yards of their own; but this poor little fellow will always have to stay at home with his mother.” And she called him Medio Pollito, which is Spanish for half-chick.