Page:Lange - The Blue Fairy Book.djvu/213

 but they were thinking only of each other, and when they came out of the forest the sun was high in the heavens.

Next morning, when the youngest girl did not come to her work, the old woman asked where she was. The sisters pretended not to know, but the old woman easily guessed what had happened, and, as she was in reality a wicked witch, determined to punish the fugitives. Accordingly, she collected nine different kinds of enchanters’ nightshade, added some salt, which she first bewitched, and, doing all up in a cloth into the shape of a fluffy ball, sent it after them on the wings of the wind, saying:

At midday the Prince and his men came to a deep river, spanned by so narrow a bridge that only one rider could cross at a time. The horse on which the Prince and the maiden were riding had just reached the middle when the magic ball flew by. The horse in its fright suddenly reared, and before anyone could stop it flung the maiden into the swift current below. The Prince tried to jump in after her, but his men held him back, and in spite of his struggles led him home, where for six weeks he shut himself up in a secret chamber, and would neither eat nor drink, so great was his grief. At last he became so ill his life was despaired of, and in great alarm the King caused all the wizards of his country to be summoned. But none could cure him. At last the wind wizard’s son said to the King: ‘Send for the old wizard from Finland, he knows more than all the wizards of your kingdom put together.’ A messenger was at once sent to Finland, and a week later the old wizard himself arrived on the wings of the wind. ‘Honoured King,’ said the wizard, ‘the wind has blown this illness upon your son, and a magic ball has snatched away his beloved. This it is which makes him grieve so constantly. Let the wind blow upon him that it may blow away his sorrow.’ Then the King made his son go out into the wind, and he gradually recovered and told his father all. ‘Forget the maiden,’ said the King, ‘and take another bride;’ but the Prince said he could never love another.

A year afterwards he came suddenly upon the bridge where his beloved had met her death. As he recalled the misfortune he wept