Once upon a time, a certain king was hunting in a great forest,
and he chased a wild beast so eagerly that none of his attendants
could follow him. When evening drew near he stopped and looked
around him, and then he saw that he had lost his way. He
sought a way out, but could find none. Then he perceived an aged
woman with a head which nodded perpetually, who came towards
him, but she was a witch. Good woman, said he to her, can
you not show me the way through the forest. Oh, yes, lord
king, she answered, that I certainly can, but on one condition,
and if you do not fulfil that, you will never get out of the
forest, and will die of hunger in it.
What kind of condition is it, asked the king.
I have a daughter, said the old woman, who is as beautiful
as anyone in the world, and well deserves to be your consort,
and if you will make her your queen, I will show you the way out
of the forest. In the anguish of his heart the king consented,
and the old woman led him to her little hut, where her daughter
was sitting by the fire. She received the king as if she had been
expecting him, and he saw that she was very beautiful, but still
she did not please him, and he could not look at her without
secret horror. After he had taken the maiden up on his horse,
the old woman showed him
the way, and the king reached his royal palace again, where the
wedding was celebrated.
The king had already been married once, and had by his first
wife, seven children, six boys and a girl, whom he loved
better than anything else in the world. As he now feared that
the stepmother might not treat them well, and even do them some
injury, he took them to a lonely castle which stood in the
midst of a forest. It lay so concealed, and the way was so
difficult to find that he himself would not have found it,
if a wise woman had not given him a ball of yarn with wonderful
properties. When he threw it down before him, it unrolled
itself and showed him his path.
The king, however, went so
frequently away to his dear children that the queen observed
his absence, she was curious and wanted to know what he did
when he was quite alone in the forest. She gave a great deal
of money to his servants, and they betrayed the secret to her,
and told her likewise of the ball which alone could point out
the way. And now she knew no rest until she had learnt where
the king kept the ball of yarn, and then she made little shirts
of white silk, and as she had learnt the art of witchcraft from
her mother, she sewed a charm inside them. And once when the
king had ridden forth to hunt, she took the little shirts and
went into the forest, and the ball showed her the way.