Page:The folk-tales of the Magyars.djvu/246

 170 They bewailed her with loud cries of grief, and commanded the maidens with threats to tell them who had done it, but they were even more stunned with grief, and bewailed the good lady, and could not utter a single word, till one of them said that she saw the pretty girl talking with a gipsy woman for a while, and that the moment the woman left she suddenly dropped down dead. After much weeping and wailing the robbers made preparations for the laying out of their adored queen; they took off her shoes in order to put more beautiful ones upon her pretty feet: they then took the rings off her fingers in order to clean them, and as at the very last one of the robbers pulled off the most precious ring from her little finger, the young girl sat up and smiled, and informed them that she had slept very well, and had had most beautiful dreams; and also that if they had not taken off that very ring (which the gipsy woman had put on that day) from her little finger she would never have waked again. The robbers smashed the murderous ring to atoms with their hatchet-sticks, and begged their dear queen not to speak to anyone, except themselves, as all others were wicked, and envious of her on account of her beauty, while they adored her. Having partaken of a good supper, the robbers again went out to their plunder singing, and quite at rest in their minds, and for a couple of weeks nothing happened to the young lady; but after a fortnight her mother again felt ennui and questioned her mirror: "Is there any one living being on this earth more beautiful than I?" The mirror replied: "You are very beautiful, but your daughter is one thousand times more beautiful." The beautiful lady began to tear her hair in rage, and went to complain to the witch that her daughter was alive still, so the witch again went off and found the young lady, as before, among the flower-beds. The witch disguised herself as a Jewess this time, and began to praise the gold and diamond pins with which the young lady's shawl was fastened, which she