After a little hesitation the king consented to let the boy draw the ring from his finger; but scarcely was this done, when he vanished from before his eyes, suddenly and without warning. Ortnit felt bewildered. He heard the boy’s voice, now at a distance and now near, making sarcastic remarks on the beating his mother would give him when he went home, and finally announcing that he would pelt him with a few pebbles to show him how well he could do it. Ortnit defended himself for some time against the terrible storm of sharp stones that rained upon him, but at last, seeing that neither his great strength nor his sword were of any avail, he turned to his horse and prepared to ride away.
On perceiving this the hobgoblin exclaimed: “Wait a bit, friend Goodman. I am sorry to think of the stripes your mother will give you. Listen to me. I have many important things to talk to you about. If you will give me your royal word of honour that you will not revenge yourself for the trick I played you, I will give you back your ring.”
“Very well,” answered Ortnit, “I promise on my honour.”
“And if I go on to talk ill of your mother?”
“No,” cried the king, “I will never forgive that. You may say what you like about me, but my mother is the purest and most perfect of women.”
“I quite agree with you,” said the little creature; “you may listen to me without fearing that I shall slander her, for I am Alberich (Ælf-ric) king of the Dwarfs, and you and I are more nearly related than you think. I will tell you the truth; but first take back your ring. I trust to your word of honour.”
The moment Ortnit felt the ring in his hand, he slipped it back on his finger, and immediately saw the boy standing before him.
“You must know, great king,” pursued Alberich, “that you have to thank me for your land and people, castles, towns and victories, and also for your marvellous strength. Your predecessor, whom you call father, married, when he was an elderly man, the youthful sister of the prince of the wild Reussen. The marriage was childless. Husband and wife in vain prayed heaven for an heir. Your mother was the best and most virtuous woman in Lombardy, but she wore herself away with fretting about what would become of the country and herself when her husband died without an heir. She foresaw that the nation would be split into factions, that civil war would desolate the land, and that she herself might be chased from Lombardy, a homeless exile. I often heard her plaints when I entered her room unseen. The older the king grew, the more her anxiety increased; then—well, you must know it sooner or later—I became her second husband.”
“Monster, you lie!” shouted Ortnit, drawing a dagger from his side, but he could not use it, for the smiling boy looked up at him so fearlessly.
“Your anger is bootless,” he said. “You had better let me finish my story. Young as I look, I am five hundred years old; small as I am, and big and strong as you are, I am yet your father. I proposed to the king that he should secretly get a divorce from his wife and let her marry me. He consented, but she would not. She refused. She spent days and months in weeping, and only gave way at last when her husband insisted! She and I were married secretly by a priest. No one guessed what had happened, and when you were born you were supposed to be the old king’s son. I did not win my wife’s heart, however, until her first husband was dead. After that I used sometimes to bring her here; you and I played together among the flowers like two children, and I sang with the birds that wild song of theirs about the king of the wood, which your mother often sung to you again at Castle Garden. When you grew to be a man and a hero, I was often at your side unseen, while the battle raged all round you, and on those occasions I have often turned aside the point of some murderous weapon that threatened your life. When you cross the wild ocean, and strive to win the Moorish maiden for your wife, I will be there to help you. So long as you wear that ring on your finger, you have only to wish for me and you will see me. Now wait a few minutes; I am going to fetch the armour that no weapon can pierce, and the sword Rosen, which can cut through steel and iron, and even dragon’s scales.”