He gave her leave, and she went and began bestowing alms upon them, and examining them closely. And when she had come to one of them, and was going to give him some money, she caught sight of the ring which she had given to the Prince in the other world, and her sisters’ rings too—for it really was he. So she seized him by the hand, and brought him into the hall, and said to the King:
‘Here is he who brought us out of the other world. His brothers forbade us to say that he was alive, threatening to slay us if we did.’
Then the King was wroth with those sons, and punished them as he thought best. And afterwards three weddings were celebrated.
THE WONDERFUL BIRCH
Once upon a time there were a man and a woman, who had an only daughter. Now it happened that one of their sheep went astray, and they set out to look for it, and searched and searched, each in a different part of the wood. Then the good wife met a witch, who said to her:
‘If you spit, you miserable creature, if you spit into the sheath of my knife, or if you run between my legs, I shall change you into a black sheep.’
The woman neither spat, nor did she run between her legs, but yet the witch changed her into a sheep. Then she made herself look exactly like the woman, and called out to the good man:
‘Ho, old man, halloa! I have found the sheep already!’
The man thought the witch was really his wife, and he did not know that his wife was the sheep; so he went home with her, glad at heart because his sheep was found. When they were safe at home the witch said to the man:
‘Look here, old man, we must really kill that sheep lest it run away to the wood again.’