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By Root 2272 0

“Why have you behaved so falsely to me? I will not have you any longer for a wife; your time is up, go back to the place from whence you came—to your peasant’s hut.” One favor, however, he granted her; she might take with her the one thing that was dearest and best in her eyes; and thus was she dismissed. She said: “Yes, my dear husband, if you command this, I will do it,” and she embraced him and kissed him, and said she would take leave of him. Then she ordered a powerful sleeping draught to be brought, to drink farewell to him; the King took a long draught, but she took only a little. He soon fell into a deep sleep, and when she perceived that, she called a servant and took a fair white linen cloth and wrapped the King in it, and the servant was forced to carry him into a carriage that stood before the door, and she drove with him to her own little house. She laid him in her own little bed, and he slept one day and one night without awakening, and when he awoke he looked round and said: “Good God! where am I?” He called his attendants, but none of them were there. At length his wife came to his bedside and said: “My dear lord and King, you told me I might bring away with me from the palace that which was dearest and most precious in my eyes—I have nothing more precious and dear than yourself, so I have brought you with me.” Tears rose to the King’s eyes and he said: “Dear wife, you shall be mine and I will be yours,” and he took her back with him to the royal palace and was married again to her, and at the present time they are very likely still living.

Old Hildebrand

ONCE UPON a time lived a peasant and his wife, and the parson of the village had a fancy for the wife, and had wished for a long while to spend a whole day happily with her. The peasant woman, too, was quite willing. One day, therefore, he said to the woman: “Listen, my dear friend, I have now thought of a way by which we can for once spend a whole day happily together. I’ll tell you what; on Wednesday, you must take to your bed, and tell your husband you are ill, and as long as you complain and act being ill properly, and go on doing so until Sunday when I have to preach, I will then say in my sermon that whosoever has at home a sick child, a sick husband, a sick wife, a sick father, a sick mother, a sick brother or whosoever else it may be, and makes a pilgrimage to the Göckerli hill in Italy, where you can get a peck of laurel-leaves for a kreuzer, the sick child, the sick husband, the sick wife, the sick father, or sick mother, the sick sister, or whosoever else it may be, will be restored to health immediately.”

“I will manage it,” said the woman promptly. On the Wednesday, therefore, the peasant woman took to her bed, and complained and lamented as agreed on, and her husband did everything for her that he could think of, but nothing did her any good, and when Sunday came the woman said: “I feel as ill as if I were going to die at once, but there is one thing I should like to do before my end—I should like to hear the parson’s sermon that he is going to preach to-day.” On that the peasant said: “Ah, my child, do not do it—you might make yourself worse if you were to get up. Look, I will hear the sermon, and will attend to it very carefully, and will tell you everything the parson says.”

“Well,” said the woman, “go, then, and pay great attention, and repeat to me all that you hear.” So the peasant heard the sermon, and the parson said, if any one had at home a sick child, a sick husband, a sick wife, a sick father, a sick mother, a sick sister, brother or any one else, and would make a pilgrimage to the Göckerli hill in Italy, where a peck of laurel-leaves costs a kreuzer, the sick child, sick husband, sick wife, sick father, sick mother, sick sister, brother, or whosoever else it might be, would be restored to health instantly, and whosoever wished to undertake the journey was to go to him after the service was over, and he would give him the sack for the laurel-leaves and the kreuzer. Then no one was more rejoiced than the peasant, and after