“Open the door.”
“Open it yourself, my darling child,” said the mother.
“I can’t reach it because of my nose,” said the daughter.
So, when the mother came out and saw her, you may fancy what a way she
was in, and how she screamed and groaned; but, for all that, there were
the nose and the snout and the pine bush, and they got no smaller for
all her grief.
Now the brother, who had got the place in the King’s stable, had taken a
little sketch of his sister, which he carried away with him, and every
morning and every evening he knelt down before the picture and prayed to
Our Lord for his sister, whom he loved so dearly. The other grooms had
heard him praying, so they peeped through the key-hole of his room, and
there they saw him on his knees before the picture. So they went about
saying how the lad every morning and every evening knelt down and prayed
to an idol which he had, and at last they went to the king himself and
begged him only to peep through the key-hole, and then His Majesty would
see the lad, and what things he did. At first the king wouldn’t believe
it, but at last they talked him over, and he crept on tiptoe to the door
and peeped in. Yes, there was the lad on his knees before the picture,
which hung on the wall, praying with clasped hands.
“Open the door!” called out the King; but the lad didn’t hear him.
So the King called out in a louder voice, but the lad was so deep in his
prayers he couldn’t hear him this time either.
“OPEN THE DOOR, I SAY!” roared out the King; “It’s I the King who want
to come in.”
Well, up jumped the lad and ran to the door and unlocked it, but in his
hurry he forgot to hide the picture.
But when the King came in and saw the picture, he stood there as if he
were fettered, and couldn’t stir from the spot, so lovely he thought the
picture.
“So lovely a woman there isn’t in all the wide world,” said the King.
But the lad told him she was his sister whom he had drawn, and if she
wasn’t prettier than that, at least she wasn’t uglier.
“Well, if she’s so lovely,” said the King, “I’ll have her for my queen;”
and then he ordered the lad to set off home that minute, and not be long
on the road either. So the lad promised to make as much haste as he
could, and started off from the King’s palace.
When the brother came home to fetch his sister, the step-mother and
stepsister said they must go too. So they all set out, and the good
lassie had a casket in which she kept her gold, and a little dog, whose
name was “Little Flo;” those two things were all her mother left her.
And when they had gone a while, they came to a lake which they had to
cross; so the brother sat down at the helm, and the step-mother and the
two girls sat in the bow forward, and so they sailed a long, long way.
At last they caught sight of land.
“There,” said the brother, “where you see the white strand yonder,
there’s where we’re to land;” and as he said this he pointed across the
water.
“What is it my brother says?” asked the good lassie.
“He says you must throw your casket overboard,” said the step-mother.
“Well, when my brother says it, I must do it,” said the lassie, and
overboard went the casket,
When they had sailed a bit further, the brother pointed again across the
lake.
“There you see the castle we’re going to.”
“What is it my brother says?” asked the lassie.
“He says now you must throw your little dog overboard,” said the
step-mother.
Then the lassie wept and was sore grieved, for little Flo was the
dearest thing she had in the world, but at last she threw him overboard.
“When my brother says it, I must do it, but heaven knows how it hurts me
to throw you over Little Flo,” she said.
So they sailed on a good bit still.
“There you see the King coming down to meet us,” said the brother, and
pointed towards the strand.
“What is it my brother says?” asked the lassie.
“Now he says you must make haste and throw yourself overboard,” said the
step-mother.
Well, the lassie wept and moaned; but when her brother told her to do
that, she thought she ought to do it, and so she leapt down into the
lake.
But when they came to the palace, and the King saw the loathly bride,
with a nose four ells long, and a snout three ells long, and a pine bush
in the midst of her forehead, he was quite scared out of his wits; but
the wedding was all ready, both in brewing and baking, and there sat all
the wedding guests, waiting for the bride; and so the King couldn’t help
himself, but was forced to take her for better for worse. But angry he
was, that any one can forgive him, and so he had the brother thrown into
a pit full of snakes.
Well, the first Thursday evening after the wedding, about midnight, in
came a lovely lady into the palace-kitchen, and begged the kitchen-maid,
who slept there, so prettily to lend her a brush. That she got, and then
she brushed her hair, and as she brushed, down dropped gold. A little
dog was at her heel, and to him she said,—
“Run out, little Flo, and see if it will soon be day.”
This she said three times, and the third time she sent the dog it was
just about the time the dawn begins to peep. Then she had to go, but as
she went she sung,—
“Out on you, ugly Bushy Bride,
Lying so warm by the King’s left side;
While I on sand and gravel sleep,
And over my brother adders creep,
And all without a tear.”
“Now I come twice more, and then never again.”
So next morning the kitchen-maid told what she had seen and heard, and
the King said he’d watch himself next Thursday night in the kitchen, and
see if it were true, and as soon as it got dark, out he went into the
kitchen to the kitchen-maid. But all he could do, and however much he
rubbed his eyes and tried to keep himself awake, it was no good; for the
Bushy Bride chaunted and sung till his eyes closed, and so when the
lovely lady came, there he slept and snored. This time, too, as before,
she borrowed a brush, and brushed her hair till the gold dropped, and
sent her dog out three times, and as soon as it was gray dawn, away she
went singing the same words, and adding,—
“Now I come once more, and then never again.”
The third Thursday evening the King said he would watch again; and he
set two men to hold him, one under each arm, who were to shake and jog
him every time he wanted to fall asleep; and two men he set to watch his
Bushy Bride. But when the night wore on, the Bushy Bride began to chaunt
and sing, so that his eyes began to wink, and his head hung down on his
shoulders. Then in came the lovely lady, and got the brush and brushed
her hair, till the gold dropped from it; after that she sent Little Flo
out again to see if it would soon be day, and this she did three times.
The third time it began to get gray in the east; then she sang—
“Out on you, ugly Bushy Bride,
Lying so warm by the King’s left side;
While I on sand and gravel sleep,
And over my brother adders creep,
And all without a tear.”
“Now I come back never more,” she said, and went towards the door. But
the two men who held the King under the arms, clenched his hands
together, and put a knife into his grasp, and so, somehow or other, they
got him to cut her in her little finger, and drew blood. Then the true
bride was freed, and the King woke up, and she told him now the whole
story, and how her step-mother and sister had deceived her. So the King
sent at once and took her brother out of the pit of snakes, and the
adders hadn’t done him the least harm, but the step-mother and her
daughter were thrown into it in his stead.
And now no one can tell how glad the King was to be rid of that ugly
Bushy Bride, and to get a Queen who was so lovely and bright as the day
itself. So the true wedding was held, and every one talked of it over
seven kingdoms; and then the King drove to church in their coach, and
Little Flo went inside with them too, and when the blessing was given
they drove back again, and after that I saw nothing more of them.
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