'Nay, but bring now thy youngest daughter.'
So the next evening the merchant made the youngest daughter go with
him to the ball, and the two elder daughters were left at home.
As the youngest was wont never to leave her room, the others,
how jealous soever they were of her, were never able to do her any
harm. But now that they felt secure she was absent for a considerable
space, they went into her apartment and set fire to it, and the whole
place was burnt, and also the garden, and the plant of rue.
If the king's son had come in haste for the burning of a single leaf,
I leave it to be imagined with what speed he came for the burning
of the whole plant. With such impetus, indeed, he came, that he
was bruised and burnt all over with the flaming beams of which the
apartment was built, and cut all over with the broken glass; so that
when he reached home again he was in a sorry plight indeed.
But the youngest daughter, coming home with her father from the ball,
and finding all her apartment burnt to the ground, as well as all
the plants in the garden, and with them the pot of rue, she said,
'I will stay no more in this place.' So she dressed herself in man's
clothes and wandered forth.
On, on, on, she went, till night came, and she could go no further,
but she laid herself to sleep under a tree. In the middle of the night
came an ogre and an ogress, [67] and laid themselves down also under
the tree. Then she heard the ogre speaking to the ogress, and saying,
'Our king's eldest son, the flower of the land, is sore ill and like
to die, having fallen through the window of the highest story of the
palace, and is cut with the glass, and bruised all over. What shall
be done to heal the king's eldest son, the flower of the land?'
And the ogress made answer: 'This is what should be done--but it
is well no one knows it. They should kill us, and take the fat that
is round our hearts and make an ointment, and anoint therewith the
wounds of the king's son.'
When the merchant's daughter heard this, she waited till the ogre and
ogress were gone to sleep; then she took out a brace of pistols--for
with the man's dress she had also a brace of pistols--and with one
in each hand she killed the ogre and ogress together, and with her
knife she ripped them open, and took out the fat that was round their
hearts. Then she journeyed on till she came to the king's palace. At
the door of the palace stood a guard, who told her there was no
entrance for such as her; but she said, 'To heal the wounds of the
king's eldest son am I come.'
Then the sentinel laughed, and said, 'So many great and learned
surgeons have come, and have benefited him nothing, there is no
entrance for a mountebank like thee. Begone! begone!'
But she, knowing certainly that she had the only means of healing,
would not be sent away; and when the sentinel would have driven her
off she struggled so bravely that he had to call out all the guard
to resist her; and when they all used their strength against her,
she protested so loudly that the noise of the struggle made the king
himself begin to inquire what was the matter. Then they told him,
'Behold, there stands without a low and base fellow, who would fain
pretend to heal the wounds of the king's son.'
But the king answered: 'As all the great and learned surgeons have
failed, let even the travelling doctor try his skill; maybe he knows
some means of healing.'
Then she was brought into the apartment of the king's son, and she
asked for all she needed to make the ointment, and linen for bandages,
and to be left alone with him for the space of a week. At the end
of a week the king's son was perfectly cured and well. Then she
dressed herself with care, but still in the garb of a travelling
doctor--for she had no other--and stood before him, and said,
'Know you me not?' And when he looked at her he said, 'Ah! yes; the
maiden of the rue plant!' For till then she had been so soiled with
the dust of travel that he could not recognise her. Then when he had
recognised her he protested he would marry her, and, sending to the
king his father, he told him the same.
When the king heard of his resolve, he said, 'It is well that the
prince is healed of his wounds; but with the return of bodily health
it is evident he has lost his reason, in that he is determined to
marry his surgeon. Nevertheless, as nothing is gained in this kind
of malady by contradiction, it is best to humour him. We must get
this surgeon to submit to be dressed up like a princess, and we must
amuse him by letting him go through the form of marrying her.'
It was done, therefore, as the king had said. But when the ladies of
the court came to attend the supposed surgeon, and saw her dressed in
her bridal robes, they saw by the way they became her that she was
indeed a woman and no surgeon, and that the prince was by no means
distempered in his mind.
But the prince silenced their exclamations, saying: 'Nay, but say
nothing; for perchance if my father knew that this should be a real
marriage, and no mere make-believe to humour a disordered whim, he
might withhold his consent, seeing the maiden is no princess. But
I know she is the wife destined for me, because my mother, before
she died, told me I should know her by the pot of rue; and because,
by devoting herself to healing me, she has deserved well of me. So
let the marriage go through, even as the king my father had devised.'
So the marriage was celebrated, and when the king learnt afterwards
that the pretended surgeon was a real maiden, he knew the thing could
not be altered, and said nothing. So the merchant's daughter became
the prince's wife.
[The following is a third variant of this story, but so like the last,
that I only give an abbreviated version of it.]