commands, and the boy goes,” said the fisherman. The king sat down and wrote his royal lady a letter as follows: “The youth whom I herewith send to thee, have stabbed with a sword without more ado; it is my wicked enemy. By the time I return, see that it is accomplished. Such is my will.” Then he folded the letter, sealed it, and pressed his signet-ring upon it.
Plavachek set off at once with the letter. He had to go through a great wood, and before he was aware of it, strayed from the road and lost his way. He went from thicket to thicket until it now began to grow dark. Then he met an old grandmother. “Whither away, Plavachek, whither away?” “I am going with a letter to the castle of the king, and have lost my way. You could not inform me, little mother, how I am to get on to the road again?” “In any case, to-night you will never reach your journey’s end, it is so dark,” said the grandmother. Stay with me for the night; you won’t be with strangers, you know, for I am your godmother.” The youth agreed, and scarcely had they proceeded a few steps, when, lo! there stood before them & pretty little house, just as if it had all at once grown out of the ground. In the night, when the boy had fallen asleep, the grandmother drew the letter out of his pocket and put there another one, in which it was written as follows: “This youth whom I herewith send to thee, have married to our daughter without more ado; it is my predestined son-in-law. Before my return see it is accomplished. Such is my will.”
When the royal lady had read through this letter, she at once had the wedding prepared, and both the royal lady and the young queen could not gaze upon the bridegroom enough, they liked him so much, and Plavachek was also contented with his royal bride. After several days, home came the king, and when he saw what had happened he was tremendously angry with his lady for what she had done. “Nay, but thou didst thyself order me to have him married to our daughter before thy return!” replied the queen, and handed him the letter. The king took the letter: glanced at the handwriting, seal, paper—all was his own. And then he bade summon his son-in-law, and enquired of him: What had happened, and how; and where he had gone?”
Plavachek related how he had gone and lost his way in the wood, and had stopped the night at his old godmother’s. “And what did she look like?” “Thus and thus.” And the king recognised from his description that it was the same person who twenty years
