Then he put him in chains, stuck the dagger into the earth, and fastened the chain to it so that the Magician could not move.
"You are mightier than I! Now I realize it!" cried the enchained Magician, gnashing his teeth. "Take the goldsmith's ring from the Princess's finger, and she will be released from the spell."
Not until the youth had learnt that the Princess had escaped with only a few burns on her hands, owing to the promptness of the bystanders in extinguishing the flames, did he summon up enough courage to appear before the King again.
"Your Majesty, I implore your pardon!" he said. "The treacherous Magician, not I, was the cause of the disaster. Now I have completely overcome him, and my remedy will succeed. I have only to draw the goldsmith's ring from your daughter's finger and she will be all right again."
And so it happened. As soon as the ring was taken off, the Princess at once changed back to what she had been before. But who would believe it to be possible? Her tongue, eyes, and ears were missing; they had been consumed by the flames! The youth's perplexity at this new disaster was indescribable. Again he applied to his guardian Fairy for help.
"You have let him make a fool of you a second time!" she said, again giving him advice, to help him towards the fulfilment of his wish of becoming the King's son-in-law.
When he came to the Magician he shouted at him: "You miserable deceiver! Now my patience is at an end! But eye for eye, tongue for tongue, ear for ear!"
With these words he seized the Magician to strangle him.
But the latter cried, in the utmost peril of death: "Have mercy! Have mercy! Let me live! Go to my sisters, who live a little farther back than this."