Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/543

 Miscellanea. 501

me get up ; what is the use of lying in bed for the sake of this wretched pumpkin ? " Just as she was going out of the door she heard a voice, coming from the shelf where the pumpkin had been put, saying : " Remember your promise. I must have the queen's daughter for my wife." She was indeed astonished ; but off she went to the queen and told her what had happened. The queen said: "Promises are all very well; but if your pumpkin can perform three tasks in three days, then he shall have my daughter. First, he must make two fountains, one running gold and the other silver, here in the square ; next, he must make a bigger palace than ours, and the approaches to it must be paved with gold ; thirdly, he must make half of this mountain here a plain with all the flowers and the birds, and the other half a lake with all the fishes in it."

The poor woman went back and told the pumpkin what the queen had said.

Next morning the queen woke up and did not see the fountains and she was very glad, because she did not want to give her daughter to the pumpkin, and so the next morning ; but on the third morning, when she woke up, there were all the tasks per- formed. So the queen had to give her daughter to the pumpkin. The poor girl cried bitterly, but it had to be.

One Sunday, when the princess had gone to church, out of the pumpkin came a beautiful young man, beautifully dressed, and he went to church too and sat opposite her. When she saw him, she fell in love with him, and said to herself : " Oh, that I had a hus- band like that, instead of a wretched pumpkin." And she told her mother, and next Sunday her mother came to church too, and there was the beautiful young man again, and mother and daughter went home and cried. But next Sunday, as the princess was going back from church, he came and spoke to her and told her he was her husband, but that she must not tell her mother, for if she did he would turn into a bird and fly away. She took him home with her ; but her mother came and found them talking and laughing on the sofa, and began to scold her. " Who is this here ? Don't you know you are married? Who is it ? Tell me at once." Her daughter would not. Then the queen begged her, and said she would kill herself if she did not learn the truth ; and her daughter had to say : " It is my husband ; " and he turned into a bird and flew away through the window. There was weeping and wailing ;