Kitabı oku: «Страшные сказки / Scary stories», sayfa 7

“Do you come from heaven or from earth? Are you a spirit, or a human being?”

She replied,

“I am no spirit, but an unhappy girl. Everybody left me”.

The King said,

“I won’t forsake you!”

He took her with him into his royal palace, and as she was so beautiful and good, he loved her with all his heart. He made for her silver hands, andtook her to wife¹³.

After a year the King went to fight, so he commended his young Queen to the care of his mother and said,

“If she has a baby, nurse her well, and tell me of it at once in a letter”.

Then she gave birth to a fine boy. So the old mother wrote and announced the joyful news to the King. But the messenger rested by a brook on the way, and as he was fatigued by the great distance, he fell asleep. Then came the Devil, who wanted to injure the good Queen, and exchanged the letter for another. That new letter says that the Queen gave birth to a monster. When the King read the letter he was shocked and much troubled. But he ordered to take great care of the Queen and nurse her well until his arrival. The messenger went back with the letter, but rested at the same place and again fell asleep. Then came the Devil once more, and put a different letter in his pocket. That new letter says that they must kill the Queen and her child.

The old mother was terribly shocked when she received the letter, and could not believe it. She wrote back again to the King. But received no other answer, because each time the Devil substituted a false letter. And in every letter there was an order: to kill the Queen. Furthermore: to sent to the King the Queen’s tongue and eyes as a token.

But the old mother brought a hind by night and cut out its tongue and eyes, and kept them. Then she said to the Queen,

“I cannot kill you as the King commands, but here you may stay no longer. Go forth into the wide world with your child, and never come here again”.

The poor woman tied her child on her back, and went away with eyes full of tears. She came into a great wild forest, and then she fell on her knees and prayed to God. The angel of the Lord appeared to her and led her to a little house on which was a sign with the words,

“Here all dwell free”.

A snow-white maiden came out of the little house and said,

“Welcome, Lady Queen,” and conducted her inside.

Then they unbound the little boy from her back, and feed him and laid him in a beautiful little bed. Then the poor girl said,

“From whence do you know that I was a queen?”

The white maiden answered,

“I am a God’s angel. I’ll watch over you and your child”.

The Queen stayed seven years in the little house. By God’s grace, because of her piety, her hands grew once more.

At last the King came home again from the war, and his first wish was to see his wife and the child. Then his old mother began to weep and said,

“You wicked man, why did you write to me to kill those two innocent lives?”

She showed him the letters from the Devil, and then continued,

“I did as you ordered,” and she showed the tokens, the tongue and eyes.

Then the King began to weep for his poor wife and his little son bitterly. His aged mother said,