"Where are they?"
"Oh, gone off somewhere."
The daughter said to her, "I must go too, then. Give me a piece of
linen enough to make seven shirts."
And she would go off at once. The mother was very sorry for it,
having already seven children away from home, and the only one she
had wished to go away. She let her go then.
This young girl went off, far, far, far away. She asks in a town if
they know seven brothers who work together. They tell her "No." She
goes off to a mountain and asks there too, and they tell her in
what house they live. She goes to this house, and sees that all the
household work is to be done, and that there is nobody at home. She
makes the beds, and cleans the whole house, and puts it in order. She
prepares the dinner, and then hides herself in the dust-hole. Her
brothers come home, and are astonished to see all the household work
done and the dinner ready. They begin to look if there is anyone in
the house, but they never think of looking in the dust-hole, and they
go off again to their work. Before night this young girl does all the
rest of the work, and had the supper ready against the return of her
brothers, and hides herself again in the dust-hole. Her brothers are
astonished, and again search the house, but find nothing.
They go to bed, and this young girl takes to sewing and sews a whole
shirt. She gives it to her eldest brother, and in the same way she
made a shirt every night, and took it to one of her brothers. They
could not understand how that all happened. They always said that
they would not go to sleep, but they fell asleep as soon as they
were in bed. When the turn of the youngest came to have the shirt,
he said to them, "Certainly I will not fall asleep." After he is in
bed the young girl goes and says to him, thinking that he is asleep:
"Your turn has come now at last, my dearly loved brother."
And she begins to put the shirt on him on the bed, when her brother
says to her:
"You are then my sister, you?"
And he kisses her. She tells him then how she had heard that she
had brothers, and how she had wished to go to them to help them. The
other brothers get up and rejoice, learning that it was their sister
who had done all the household work.
The brothers forbad her ever to go to such a neighbour's, whatever
might happen. But one day, without thinking about it, when she was
behindhand with her work, she went running to the house to ask for some
fire, [166] in order to make the supper ready quicker. She was very
well received; the woman offered to give her everything she wanted, but
she said she was satisfied with a little fire. This woman was a witch,
and gives her a parcel of herbs, telling her to put them as they were
into the footbath--that they relieved the fatigue very much. [167]
Every evening the seven brothers washed their feet at the same time
in a large copper. She therefore put these herbs into the copper,
and as soon as they had dipped their feet in they became six cows,
and the seventh a Breton cow. [168] This poor girl was in such trouble
as cannot be told. The poor cows all used to kiss their sister, but
the young girl always loved much best the Breton one. Every day she
took them to the field, and stopped with them to guard them.
One day when she was there the son of a king passes by, and is
quite astonished to see so beautiful a girl there. He speaks to her,
and tells her that he wishes to marry her. The young girl says to
him that she is very poor, and that that cannot be. The king says,
"Yes, yes, yes, that makes no difference."
The young girl makes as conditions that, if she marries him, he must
never kill these cows, and especially this little Breton one. [169]
The king promises it her, and they are married.
The princess takes these cows home with her; they were always well
treated. The princess became pregnant, and was confined while the king
was absent. The witch comes, and takes her out of her bed, and throws
her down a precipice that there was in the king's grounds, and the
witch puts herself into the princess' bed. When the king comes home,
he finds her very much changed, and tells her that he would not have
recognised her. The princess tells him that it was her sufferings
that had made her thus, and, in order to cure her more quickly,
he must have the Breton cow killed.