Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/215

 Rh On the next day a grand entertainment was prepared. Lords and ladies were invited from all quarters, and beautiful dresses, embroidered with gold and studded with pearls, were got ready. The lords and ladies assembled, took their seats at the tables, and waited expectantly to see what would happen. Then the prince took out the last lemon, cut it in halves, and out of the lemon sprang a lady thrice as beautiful as had been the preceding ones. "Have you made ready for me to eat? Have you made ready for me to drink? Have you got pretty dresses ready for me?" "I have, my dear soul, got everything ready for you," answered the prince, and presented the handsome dresses to her. The beautiful damsel put on the beautiful clothes, and all rejoiced at her extraordinary beauty. Ere long the betrothal took place, and after the betrothal a magnificent wedding.

Now was fulfilled the old king's wish: he blessed his son, resigned the kingdom into his hands, and ere long died.

The first thing that occurred to the new king after his father's death was a war which a neighbouring king excited against him. Now he was constrained for the first time to part from his hard-earned wife. Lest, therefore, anything should happen to her in his absence he caused a throne to be erected for her in a garden beside a lake, which no one could ascend save the person to whom she let down a silken cord, and drew that person up to her.

Not far from the royal castle lived an old woman, the same that had given the prince the counsel about the three lemons. She had as servant a gipsy whom she was in the habit of sending to the lake for water. She knew very well that the young king had obtained a wife, and it annoyed her excessively that he had not invited her to the wedding, nay, had not even thanked her for her good advice. One day she sent her maidservant to the lake for water. She went, drew water, and saw the beautiful image in the water. Under the impression that this was her own reflection, she banged her pitcher on the ground, so that it flew into a thousand pieces. "Are you worthy," said she, "that so beautiful a person as myself should carry water for an old witch like you?" As she uttered this she looked up, and lo! it wasn't her own reflection that she saw in the water, but that of the beautiful queen. Ashamed, she picked up the pieces and returned