Roman Legends: A collection of the fables and folk-lore of Rome. Rachel Harriette Busk
It was not very easy for such a haggard old woman to obtain admission to the private apartments, but when she declared she had come about a remedy for the king, she was made welcome. Having thus obtained the ear of the queen-mother, she assured her, with many protestations, that if the king could he made to eat the whole of the cake, without giving the least piece of it to anyone, he would be immediately cured. But that if he gave away the least piece the virtue might be lost. This was lest he should thus give away the ring to anyone. The ladies waiting on the queen laughed at the old woman’s pretensions, and would have driven her away with contumely, but the queen said: ‘Nay, who knows but there may be healing in it. Experience often teaches the old remedies which science has failed to discover.’
Then she dismissed Maria with a present, and took the cake in to the king, trying to amuse him with the old woman’s story; but the king refused to be amused, and let the cake be. Only as he took no notice of what food he ate, and they gave him this cake for all his meals, he took it as he would have taken anything else that had been set before him. When he cut it, his knife struck against something hard, and when he had pulled this out, he found it was the very ring his sylphlike partner had given him the night she wore the dress woven of sunbeams.
At the sight he started like one waking from a trance.
‘How came this ring here?’ he exclaimed; and the queen-mother, who had stood by to see the effect of the remedy, replied,
‘A certain old woman, whom you befriended in the forest and told the servants to shelter in the palace, brought me the cake, saying it would prove a remedy for your melancholy, which she had prepared out of gratitude.’
‘Let her be called instantly hither,’ then said the king; and they went to fetch Maria Wood; but Maria could nowhere be found.
The king was at this announcement very nearly relapsing into his former condition; but the idea came to his mind to find something out by means of the ring itself. Therefore he summoned together all the goldsmiths, and refiners, and alchemists of his kingdom, and bid them tell him the history of the ring.
At the end of seven days’ trial the oldest of the alchemists brought it back to the king and said:
‘We find, O King, that this ring is made of gold which comes from afar. Moreover, that the workmanship is such as is only produced in the kingdoms of the West, and the characters on it pronounce that its owner is a princess of high degree, whose dominions exceed greatly those of the King’s Majesty in magnitude.’
The king now ordered a more urgent search to be made for Maria Wood, as the only clue by which to reach the fair owner of the ring; and Maria, having heard by report of the alchemists’ announcement, thought it was time to let herself be known. Habiting herself, therefore, in becoming attire, with jewels befitting her rank, with all of which the fairy had amply provided her, she entered for the last time her wooden covering, and went up to the king in answer to his summons.
‘Come hither, good woman,’ said the king encouragingly; ‘you have indeed done me good service in sending me this ring, and have repaid a hundredfold the little favour I bestowed on you in taking you into the palace. If, now, you will further bring me hither her to whom this ring belongs, or take me where I may find her, you shall not only live in the palace, but shall live there in royal state and luxury, and whatsoever more you may desire.’
At these words Maria stepped out of her wooden case, and stood before the king in all her youthful beauty, telling him all her story.
The proofs that supported it were sufficient to silence every doubt; and when the people were called together to celebrate her marriage with the king, the whole nation hailed her accession as their queen with the greatest delight.
Soon after, the royal pair went to visit Maria’s father, who had the joy of knowing that his child was really well established in life. They stayed with him till he died; and then his dominions were added to those of the king, Maria’s husband. Maria did not forget to inquire for her good mistress, but she had long ago gone back to Fairyland.
SECOND VERSION.
Another version of this, differing in many details, was given me in the following form. The former was from Loreto; this, from Rome itself.
They say, there was a king, whose wife, when she came to die, said to him,
‘When I am dead, you will want to marry again; but take my advice: marry no woman but her whose foot my shoe fits.’
But this she said because the shoe was under a spell, and would fit no one whom he could marry.
The king, however, caused the shoe to be tried on all manner of women; and when the answer always was that it would fit none of them, he grew quite bewildered and strange in his mind.
After some years had passed, his young daughter, having grown up to girl’s estate, came to him one day, saying,
‘Oh, papa; only think! Mamma’s shoe just fits me!’
‘Does it!’ replied the simple king; ‘then I must marry you.’
‘Oh, that cannot be, papa,’ said the girl, and ran away.
But the simple king was so possessed with the idea that he must marry the woman whom his wife’s shoe fitted, that he sent for her every day and said the same thing. But the queen had not said that he should marry the woman whom her shoe fitted, but that he should not marry any whom it did not fit.
When the princess found that he persevered in his silly caprice, she said at last,
‘Papa, if I am to do what you say, you must do something for me first.’
‘Agreed, my child,’ replied the king; ‘you have only to speak.’
‘Then, before I marry,’ said the girl, ‘I want a lot of things, but I will begin with one at a time. First, I want a dress of the colour of a beautiful noontide sky, but all covered with stars, like the sky at midnight, and furnished with a parure to suit it.’3
Such a dress the king had made and brought to her.
‘Next,’ said the princess, ‘I want a dress of the colour of the sea, all covered with golden fishes, with a fitting parure.’
Such a dress the king had made, and brought to her.
‘Next,’ said the princess, ‘I want a dress of a dark blue, all covered with gold embroidery and spangled with silver bells, and with a parure to match.’
Such a dress the king had made and brought to her.
‘These are all very good,’ said the princess; ‘but now you must send for the most cunning artificer in your whole kingdom, and let him make me a figure of an old woman4 just like life, fitted with all sorts of springs to make it move and walk when one gets inside it, just like a real woman.’
Such a figure the king had made, and brought it to the princess.
‘That is just the sort of figure I wanted,’ said she; ‘and now I don’t want anything more.’
And the simple king went away quite happy.
As soon as she was alone, however, the princess packed all the three dresses and many of her other dresses, and all her jewellery and a large sum of money, inside the figure of the old woman, and then she got into it and walked away. No one seeing an old woman walking out of the palace thought she had anything to do with the princess, and thus she got far away without anyone thinking of stopping her.
On, on, on, she wandered till she came to the palace of a great king, and just at the time that the king’s son was coming in from hunting.