three old women, and gave each one back her napkin and her cake.
‘Where is my wife?’ asked Peter, when he reached home.
‘Oh, my dear son, why did you ever leave us? After you had vanished, no one knew where, your poor wife grew more and more wretched, and would neither eat nor drink. Little by little she faded away, and a month ago we laid her in her grave, to hide her sorrows under the earth.’
At this news Peter began to weep, for he had loved his wife before he went away and had seen the golden-haired maiden.
He went sorrowfully about his work for the space of half a year, when, one night, he dreamed that he moved the diamond ring given him by the maiden from his right hand and put it on the wedding finger of the left. The dream was so real that he awoke at once and changed the ring from one hand to the other. And as he did so guess what he saw? Why, the golden-haired girl standing before him. And he sprang up and kissed her, and said: ‘Now you are mine for ever and ever, and when we die we will both be buried in one grave.’
And so they were.
[From Ungarische Mährchen.]
