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As soon as she had done so, he opened his eyes, and sat up. He thanked God for bringing him to life again. Then he looked about, and saw the servant-girl, and said to her, “Who has made me well and pulled all the needles out of my body?” “I have,” she answered. Then he thanked her and said she should be his wife.

When the princess came from her bath, she found the king alive, and sitting on his bed talking to her servant. When she saw this she was very sad, but she said nothing. The king said to the servant-maid, “Who is this girl?” She answered, “She is one of my servants.” And from that moment the princess became a servant-girl, and her servant-girl married the king. Every day the king said, “Can this lovely girl be really a servant? She is far more beautiful than my wife.”

One day the king thought, “I will go to another country to eat the air.” So he called the pretended princess, his wife, and told her he was going to eat the air in another country. “What would you like me to bring you when I come back?” She answered, “I should like beautiful sárís and clothes, and gold and silver jewels.” Then the king said, “Call the servant-girl, and ask her what she would like me to bring her.” The real princess came, and the king said to her, “See, I am going to another country to eat the air. What would you like me to bring for you when I return?”

“King,” she answered, “if you can bring me what I want I will tell you what it is; but if you cannot get it, I will not tell you.” “Tell me what it is,” said the king. “Whatever it may be I will bring it you.” “Good,” said the princess. “I want a sun-jewel box.” Now the princess knew all about the sun-jewel boxes, and that only fairies had such boxes. And she knew, too, what would be in hers if the king could get one for her, although these boxes contain sometimes one thing and sometimes another.

The king had never heard of such a box, and did not know what it was like; so he went to every country asking all the people he met what sort of box was a sun-jewel box, and where he could get it. At last one day, after a fruitless search, he was very sad, for he thought, “I have promised the servant to bring her a sun-jewel box, and now I cannot get one for her; what shall I do?”

Then he went to sleep, and had a dream. In it he saw a jungle, and in the jungle a fakír who, when he slept, slept for twelve years, and then was awake for twelve years. The king felt sure this man could give him what he wanted, so when he woke he said to his sepoys and servants, “Stay here in this spot till I return to you; then we will go back to my country.”

He mounted his horse and set out for the jungle he had seen in his dream. He went on and on till he came to it, and there he saw the fakír lying asleep. He had been asleep for twelve years all but two weeks: over him were a quantity of leaves, and grass, and a great deal of mud. The king began taking off all the grass, and leaves, and mud, and every day for a fortnight when he got up he cleared them all away from off the fakír. When the fakír awoke at the end of the two weeks, and saw that no mud, or grass, or leaves were upon him, but that he was quite clean, he was very much pleased, and said to the king, “I have slept for twelve years, and yet I am as clean as I was when I went to sleep. When I awoke after my last sleep, I was all covered with dirt and mud, grass and leaves; but this time I am quite clean.”