Page:Segnius Irritant or Eight Primitive Folk-lore Stories.pdf/17



was a king and he was now old, and had but one son. Once he called this son to him, and said: “My dear son, thou well knowest that the mature fruit falls to give place to another. My head is also ripening to decay, and perhaps in a short time the sun will no more shine upon it; but kefore thou buriest me, I would gladly see my future daughter, thy bride. Marry thee, my son.” And the king’s son said: “I should gladly have submitted to thy wishes, father, but I have no sweetheart, and know of no one. And so the old king felt in his pocket, drew out a golden key, and offered it to his son. “Go up on to the tower, to the top storey: look round there and tell me which thou fanciest.” The king’s son tarried not, but went. All his life he had never yet been up there, and also had never heard what there might be there.

When he came up above to the last storey, he saw in the ceiling a small iron door like a trap-door; it was locked; he opened it with the golden key, raised it, and stepped out into the room above. This was a large circular hall, the ceiling blue, like the sky in a clear night; silver stars twinkled upon it; the floor was a carpet of green silk, and round the wall stood twelve lofty windows in golden mouldings, and in each window on crystal glass was a virgin depicted in rainbow hues, with a royal crown on her head, different in each window, and in a different dress, but one more beautiful than the other, so that the king’s son could scarely take his eyes off them; and when he thus looked upon them with astonishment, not knowing which to choose, these virgins began to move as if alive, looked round at him, smiled, and all but spoke.

Then the king’s son observed that one of these twelve windows was covered with a white curtain; and so he tore aside the curtain that he might see what was under it. And there was a virgin in a white dress, girdled with a silver girdle, with a crown of pearls on her head; she was the most beautiful of all, but pale and sorrowful as if she had risen from the grave. The king’s son stood a long time before this picture as if in the presence of an apparition; and as he thus looked his heart melted within him, and he said: “Her I wish