Page:Lange - The Blue Fairy Book.djvu/129

 ‘You have freed the castle from its curse, and you shall marry my daughter.’ ‘That’s all charming,’ he said; ‘but I still don’t know what it is to shudder.’

Then the gold was brought up, and the wedding was celebrated, but the young King, though he loved his wife dearly, and though he was very happy, still kept on saying: ‘If I could only shudder! if I could only shudder!’ At last he reduced her to despair. Then her maid said: ‘I’ll help you; we’ll soon make him shudder.’ So she went out to the stream that flowed through the garden, and had a pail full of little gudgeon brought to her. At night, when the young King was asleep, his wife had to pull the clothes off him, and pour the pail full of little gudgeon over him, so that the little fish swam all about him. Then he awoke and cried out: ‘Oh! how I shudder, how I shudder, dear wife! Yes, now I know what shuddering is.’