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 about the meadow, till the Bride saw them from the window. The chickens pleased her so much that she asked if they were for sale. ‘Not for gold and goods, but for flesh and blood. Let me speak with the Bridegroom in his chamber once more.’

The Bride said ‘Yes,’ intending to deceive her as before; but when the Prince went to his room he asked the Chamberlain what all the murmuring and rustling in the night meant. Then the Chamberlain told him how he had been ordered to give him a sleeping draught because a poor girl had been concealed in his room, and that night he was to do the same again. ‘Pour out the drink, and put it near my bed,’ said the Prince. At night she was brought in again, and when she began to relate her sad fortunes he recognised the voice of his dear wife, sprang up, and said, ‘Now I am really free for the first time. All has been as a dream, for the foreign Princess cast a spell over me so that I was forced to forget you; but heaven in a happy hour has taken away my blindness.’

Then they both stole out of the castle, for they feared the Princess’s father, because he was a sorcerer. They mounted the Griffin, who bore them over the Red Sea, and when they got to mid-ocean, she dropped the nut. On the spot a fine nut-tree sprang up, on which the bird rested; then it took them home, where they found their child grown tall and beautiful, and they lived happily till the end.