When Elise saw all those things so dear to her heart, a smile for the first time played about her lips, and the blood rushed back to her cheeks. She thought of the deliverance of her brothers, and she kissed the king’s hand; he pressed her to his heart, and ordered all the church bells to ring marriage peals. The lovely dumb girl from the woods was to be queen of the country.
The archbishop whispered evil words into the ear of the king, but they did not reach his heart. The wedding was to take place, and the archbishop himself had to put the crown upon her head. In his anger he pressed the golden circlet so tightly upon her head as to give her pain. But a heavier circlet pressed upon her heart—her grief for her brothers; so she thought nothing of the bodily pain. Her lips were sealed, a single word from her mouth would cost her brothers their lives, but her eyes were full of love for the good and handsome king, who did everything he could to please her. Every day she grew more and more attached to him, and longed to confide in him, tell him her sufferings; but dumb she must remain, and in silence must bring her labor to completion. Therefore at night she stole away from his side into her secret chamber, which was decorated like a cave, and here she knitted one shirt after another. When she came to the seventh all her flax was worked up; she knew that these nettles which she was to use grew in the church-yard, but she had to pluck them herself. How was she to get there? “Oh, what is the pain of my fingers compared with the anguish of my heart?” she thought. “I must venture out; the good God will not desert me!” With as much terror in her heart as if she were doing some evil deed she stole down one night into the moonlit garden, and through the long alleys out into the silent streets to the church-yard. There she saw, sitting on a gravestone, a group of hideous ghouls, who took off their tattered garments, as if they were about to bathe, and then they dug down into the freshly made graves with their skinny fingers, and tore the flesh from the bodies and devoured it. Elise had to pass close by them, and they fixed their evil eyes upon her; but she said a prayer as she passed, picked the stinging nettles, and hurried back to the palace with them.
Only one person saw her, but that was the archbishop, who watched while others slept. Surely now all his bad opinions of the queen were justified; all was not as it should be with her; she must be a witch, and therefore she had bewitched the king and all the people.
He told the king in the confessional what he had seen and what he feared. When those bad words passed his lips the pictures of the saints shook their heads as if to say: It is not so; Elise is innocent. The archbishop, however, took it differently, and thought that they were bearing witness against her, and shaking their heads at her sin. Two big tears rolled down the king’s cheeks, and he went home with doubt in his heart. He pretended to sleep at night, but no quiet sleep came to his eyes. He perceived how Elise got up and went to her private closet. Day by day his face grew darker; Elise saw it, but could not imagine what was the cause of it. It alarmed her, and what was she not already suffering in her heart because of her brothers? Her salt tears ran down upon the royal purple velvet, they lay upon it like sparkling diamonds, and all who saw their splendor wished to be queen.
She had, however, almost reached the end of her labors, only one shirt of mail was wanting; but again she had no more flax, and not a single nettle was left. Once more, for the last time, she must go to the church-yard to pluck a few handfuls. She thought with dread of the solitary walk and the horrible ghouls, but her will was as strong as her trust in God.
Elise went, but the king and the archbishop followed her; they saw her disappear within the grated gateway of the church-yard. When they followed they saw the ghouls sitting on the gravestone as Elise had see them before; and the king turned away his head because he thought she was among them—she, whose head this very evening had rested on his breast.
“The people must judge her,” he groaned, and the people judged. “Let her be consumed in the glowing flames!”
She was led away from her beautiful royal apartments to a dark, damp dungeon, where the wind whistled through the grated window. Instead of velvet and silk, they gave her the bundle of nettles she had gathered to lay her head upon. The hard, burning shirts of mail were to be her covering, but they could have given her nothing more precious.
She set to work again, with many prayers to God. Outside her prison the street boys sang derisive songs about her, and not a soul comforted her with a kind word.
Towards evening she heard the rustle of swans’ wings close to her window; it was her youngest brother; at last he had found her. He sobbed aloud with joy, although he knew that the coming night might be her last; but then her work was almost done, and her brothers were there.