Page:Fairy Tales Their Origin and Meaning.djvu/81

II.] deserted wife sat down on the desolate shore, and cried bitterly; and then she said, "So far as the wind blows, and so long as the cock crows, will I search for my husband, till I find him;" and so she travelled on and on, until one day she came to the palace whither the Enchanted Princess had carried the Prince; and there was great feasting going on, and they told her that the Prince and Princess were about to be married. Then she remembered what the Sun had said, and took out the casket and opened it, and there was the most beautiful dress in all the world; as brilliant as the Sun himself. So she put it on, and went into the palace, and everybody admired the dress, and the Enchanted Princess asked if she would sell it?

"Not for gold or silver," she said, "but for flesh and blood."

"What do you mean?" the Princess asked.

"Let me sleep for one night in the bridegroom's chamber," the wife said.

So the Enchanted Princess agreed, but she gave the Prince a sleeping draught, so that he could not hear his wife's cries; and in the morning she was driven out, without a word from him, for he slept so soundly that all she