The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales (Pantheon Books) - Jacob Grimm [71]
When it grew dark the King came into the garden and brought a priest with him, who was to speak to the spirit. All three seated themselves beneath the tree and watched. At midnight the maiden came creeping out of the thicket, went to the tree, and again ate one pear off it with her mouth, and beside her stood the angel in white garments. Then the priest went out to them and said: “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 mortal deserted by all but God.” The King said: “If you are forsaken by all the world, yet will I not 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, had silver hands made for her, and took her to wife.
After a year the King had to go on a journey, so he commended his young Queen to the care of his mother and said: “If she is brought to child-bed take care of her, 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 made haste to write and announce the joyful news to him. 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 was always seeking to injure the good Queen, and exchanged the letter for another, in which was written that the Queen had brought a monster into the world. When the King read the letter he was shocked and much troubled, but he wrote in answer that they were 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, in which it was written that they were to put the Queen and her child to death. 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 the last letter it was also written that she was to preserve the Queen’s tongue and eyes as a token that she had obeyed.
But the old mother wept to think such innocent blood was to be shed, and had a hind brought by night and cut out her tongue and eyes, and kept them. Then said she to the Queen: “I cannot have you killed 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, and 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 she unbound the little boy from her back, and held him to her breast that he might feed, and laid him in a beautifully-made little bed. Then said the poor woman: “From whence do you know that I was a queen?” The white maiden answered: “I am an angel sent by God, to watch over you and your child.” The Queen stayed seven years in the little house, and was well cared for, and by God’s grace, because of her piety, her hands which had been cut off, grew once more.
At last the King came home again from his journey, and his first wish was to see his wife and the child. Then his aged mother began to weep and said: “You wicked man, why did you write to me that I was to take those two innocent lives?” and she showed him the two letters which the Evil One had forged, and then continued: “I did as you bade me,” and she showed the tokens, the tongue and eyes. Then the King began to weep for his poor wife and his little