Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/321

Rh as still heard from the peasants of the south-west of France. As told by them it runs as follows:—A widowed king, who loves salt, and has three daughters to marry, determines, against the advice of a confidential servant, to test their love by the usual enquiries. The youngest replies that she loves him as much as he loves salt. Enraged beyond measure at this answer, he compels the servant in question to take her into the wood for the purpose of putting her to death, and divides his land between his two elder daughters, reserving to himself the right to live with each of them for six months of each year. The servant takes the heroine, with her royal robes in a wallet, to a neighbouring king, whose service she enters, and is employed to look after the turkeys. On his way back he kills his bitch, and takes her tongue to the king, his master, in proof of his having fulfilled the unnatural command with which he was entrusted. Meantime, the elder daughters have bribed the notary who was summoned to draw the deed of gift of the kingdom; and by their instructions the reservation of the king's right to board and lodging with his daughters has been carefully left out of the instrument. The king, turned out of doors, is housed and supported by the faithful servant out of the moneys given him by the heroine's father and sisters for her supposed slaughter. The heroine, still living, falls in love with her new master's son. When the carnival arrives, she secretly dresses herself in her robes, takes a horse from the stable, and attends a ball where she meets this royal youth; but she is punctual in leaving at midnight. The next night she repeats the adventure in more gorgeous apparel. The third night, still more resplendent, she goes to the ball again, but in quitting it loses the red slipper from her right foot. The slipper is found by the prince, and a proclamation is made that he will marry her whom it fits. After all have tried, it fits none but the little turkey-herd. She, however, refuses to marry without her father's consent. Her father, having learnt the truth about his youngest daughter from his servant, goes in search of her, and arrives at the castle where she is in service. She still refuses to marry until her father has been reinstated in his