FullReads

But the king said: ‘I cannot leave it with you, my daughter, for it is only lent to me.’ So he took it away with him, and gave it back to the shepherd.

Then the young man threw the skin from off him, and went to the king, saying: ‘Sire, I am persuaded I can find your daughter.’

When the king saw how handsome he was, he said: ‘My lad, I have pity on your youth. This enterprise has already cost the lives of many, and will certainly be your death as well.’

But the young man answered, ‘I accept your conditions, oh king; I will either find her or lose my head.’

Thereupon he went before the king, who followed after him, till they came to the great door. Then the young man said to the king: ‘Speak the words that it may open.’

And the king answered: ‘What are the words? Shall I say something like this: “Shut; shut; shut”?’

‘No,’ said he; ‘say “Open, Sartara Martara of the earth.” ‘

When the king had so said, the door opened of itself, and they went in, while the king gnawed his moustache in anger. Then they came to the second door, where the same thing happened as at the first, and they went in and found the princess.

Then spoke the king and said: ‘Yes, truly, you have found the princess. Now I will turn her as well as all her maidens into ducks, and if you can guess which of these ducks is my daughter, then you shall have her to wife.’

And immediately the king changed all the maidens into ducks, and he drove them before the young man, and said: ‘Now show me which is my daughter.’

Then the princess, according to their understanding, began to clean her wings with her bill, and the lad said: ‘She who cleans her wings is the princess.’

Now the king could do nothing more but give her to the young man to wife, and they lived together in great joy and happiness.

[From the German.]