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38 sorry. She was a Fool, but she was his daughter after all, and so the peasant wept for his daughter, took the silver saucer and the apple, put them into a coffer and locked them up. And the sisters also wept for her.

Soon a herd came by and the trumpet sounded at dawn. But the shepherd was taking his flock, and at dawn he sounded his trumpet and went into the wood to look for a little lamb. He saw a little hummock beside a silver birch, and on it all around ruby-red and azure flowers, and bulrushes standing above the flowers. So the young shepherd broke a bulrush, made a pipe of it, and a wonderful wonder happened, a marvellous marvel: the pipe began of itself to sing and to speak. "Play on, play on, my little pipe. Console my father, console my guiding light, my father, and tell my mother of me, and my sisters, the little doves. For they killed me, the poor one, and for a silver saucer have severed me from light, all for my enchanted apple."

People heard and ran together, the entire village thronged round the shepherd, asked him who had been slain. There was no end to the question. "Good folks all," said the shepherd, "I do not know anything about it. I was looking for a little sheep in the wood, and I saw a knoll, on the knoll flowers, and a bulrush over the knoll. I broke off a bulrush, carved myself a pipe out of it, and the pipe began singing and speaking of itself."

Now it so happened that the father of the Little Fool was there, heard the words of the shepherd, wanted to lay hold of the pipe, when the pipe began singing, "Play on, play on, little pipe: this is my father; console him with my mother. My poor little self they slew, they withdrew from the white world, all for the sake of my silver vessel and crystal apple."

"Lead us, shepherd," said the father, "where you broke off the bulrush." So they followed the shepherd into the wood and to the knoll, and they were amazed