Page:Segnius Irritant or Eight Primitive Folk-lore Stories.pdf/52

 and viands in the world, and dresses were prepared, beautifully embroidered with gold and begemmed with pearls. The nobility gathered itself, sat down to table, and awaited what should happen. Then the prince drew out the remaining citron, divided it in half, and forth from the citron sprang a maiden, three times more beautiful than the previous ones: “What hast thou prepared me to eat? What hast thou prepared me to drink? What fine raiment hast thou prepared forme? “Everything, my darling, everything have I prepared,” responded the prince, and offered her the beautiful raiment. The beautiful girl arrayed herself in the beautiful raiment, and all—how they exulted in her incomparable beauty. Not long after this was the betrothing, and after the betrothals a splendid wedding.

And so at last the desire of the old king was fulfilled; he blessed his son, handed the kingdom over to him, and not long after died.

The first thing that surprised the young king, after the death of his father, was a war which neighbouring kings stirred up against him. So now he must separate for the first time from his hardlywon bride. That nothing might happen in his absence, he had a throne erected in a garden above a lake, and this garden no one could reach unless she let down a silken cord and drew him to her.

Not far from the royal fortress castle lived an old grandmother— she, in fact, who had advised the young king about the three citrons. She had for a servant a gipsy-girl, whom she sent to this lake for water. Well, she knew that the young king had got a wife, and it vexed her exceedingly that he had not invited her to the wedding, ay, that he had not even thanked her for her good advice. And so once she sent this servant girl to the lake for water. The servant goes, dips her jug, and behold in the water a beautiful form. Under the impression that it is her own reflection, she flings the vessel of water on the ground, so that it breaks into a hundred fragments. “As if thou wert worthy,” she says, “that I, such a fine girl as I am, should carry water for thee, thou old witch.” And as she so spoke she looked up, and lo! it was not her own reflection that she had seen in the water, but that of the beautiful queen. Abashed and mortified, she collected the fragments and returned home. The old grandmother, who already knew beforehand what had happened, ran out with a new vessel to meet her, and inquired of her servant, only for form’s sake, what had occurred. The servant related everything as it had happened. “Nu! that’s nothing,” says