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I. the Vain Queen.
There was a very vain Queen who, turning towards her maids of honour, asked them, "Is there a face more beautiful than mine?" To which they replied that there was not; and on asking the same question of her servants they made the same answer. One day she turned towards her chamberlain and asked him, "Is there a more beautiful face than mine?" The chamberlain replied, "Be it known to your august majesty that there is." The queen, on hearing this, desired to know who it could be, and the chamberlain informed her that it was her daughter. The queen then immediately ordered a carriage to be prepared, and placing the princess in it ordered her servants to take her far away into the country and there to cut off her head, and to bring back her tongue. The servants departed as the Queen had ordered them, but, on arriving at the place agreed upon, they turned towards the princess and said, "Your highness is not aware for what purpose we have brought you here; but we shall do you no harm." They found a small bitch and killed her, and cut her tongue off, telling the princess that they had done this to take it to her majesty, for she had commanded them to behead her, and to take her back the tongue. They then begged of the princess to flee to some distant part and never to return to the city, so as not to betray them. The maiden departed and went on walking through several lonely wild places until she descried at a distance a small farm-house, and on approaching it she found nothing whatever inside the hut but the trail of some pigs. She walked on, and, on entering the first room she came to, she found a very old chest made of pinewood; in the second room she found a bed with a very old straw mattress upon it; and in the third
