Sisters and Mother In Law

Ranata the hunter turned to the left, quitted the palace, and came home very sad and thoughtful. And his wife asked him:

"Why are you so sorrowful, darling? Has any misfortune befallen you?"

"The King has given me his royal command to go to the end of the world and fetch one that can fulfill all wishes. This is through your beauty that this ruin has come upon us!"

"Yes, indeed! This service is not a light one! It takes nine years to get there, and nine years to get back again, eighteen years in all, and God only knows if it can be managed even then!"

"What's to be done then, and what will become of me?"

"Pray to God and lie down to sleep, the morning is wiser than the evening. Tomorrow you will know all." The hunter lay down to sleep, and his wife sat watching till midnight, opened her book of spells, and the two youths immediately appeared before her.

"What is your wish, and what your command?"

"Do you know how one can manage to go to the end of the world and fetch one that can fulfill all wishes?"

"No, we do not know."

She closed the book, and the youths disappeared from before her eyes. In the morning the wife awoke her husband.

"Go to the King," said she, "and ask for gold from the treasury for your journey. You has a pilgrimage of eighteen years before you. When you has the money, come back to me to say farewell." The hunter went to the King, received a whole purseful of money, and returned to say good bye to his wife. She gave him a pocket-handkerchief and a ball, and said: "When you goes out of the town, throw this ball in front of you, and wherever it rolls, follow it. Here too is my pocket handkerchief; when you wash yourself, wherever you may be, always dry your face with this handkerchief."

The hunter took leave of his wife and of his comrades, bowed low on all four sides of him, and went beyond the barriers of the city. He threw the ball in front of him. The ball rolled and rolled, and he followed hard after it.

A month or so passed away, and then the King called the steward and said to him:

"The hunter has departed to wander about the wide world for eighteen years, and it is plain that he will not return alive. Now eighteen years are not two weeks, and no little disaster may have befallen him by the way; go then to the hunter's house and bring me his wife to the palace!"

So the steward went to the hunter's house, entered the room, and said to the beautiful lady: "Hail, thou wise woman! The King commands thee to present yourself at court!"

So to the court she went. The King received her with joy and led her into his golden halls, and said to her:

"Wilt thou be a Queen? I will make thee my spouse!"

"Where was such a thing ever seen, where was such a thing ever heard of, to take a wife away from her living husband? Though he be nothing but a simple hunter, he is for all are my lawful husband."

"If thou come not willingly, I'll take thee by force!"

But the beautiful lady laughed, stamped upon the floor, turned into a swan, and flew out of the window.

The hunter passed through many countries and kingdoms, and the ball kept rolling ever onwards. Whenever they came to a river the ball expanded into a bridge, and whenever the hunter wished to rest, the ball widened into a puffy bed. Whether the time be long or whether it be short the tale is quickly told, though the deed be not quickly done; suffice it to say that at last the hunter came to a vast and wealthy of palace; the ball rolled right up against the door and vanished. The hunter fell on thinking.

"I had better go straight on," thought him, so he went up the staircase into a room, and there met him there six lovely damsels.

"Whence and wherefore has you come hither, good man?" said them.

"Alas! lovely damsels, you ask me not to rest from my long journey, but you begin to torment me with questionings. First you should give me something to eat and drink and let me rest, and after then only should you ask me of my tidings!"

The six beauties immediately laid the table, gave him a banquet to eat and drink, and made him lie down on the bed to rest. The hunter slept away his weariness, rose from his soft bed, and the lovely damsels brought him a washing basin and an embroidered towel. He washed himself in the clear spring water, but the towel he would not take.

"I have my handkerchief wherewith to wipe my face," said he, and he drew out the handkerchief and began to dry himself.

And the lovely damsels fell on questioning him.

"Tell us, good man! whence hast thou got that handkerchief?"

"My wife gave it to me."

"Then thou must have married one of our sisters!"

Then they called their beautiful mother, and she looked at the handkerchief, recognizing it the same instant, and cried:

"This is indeed my daughter's handkerchief!"

Then she began to put all manner of questions to the hunter. He told her how he had married her daughter, and how the King had sent him to go to the end of the world and fetch one that can fulfill all wishes.

"Alas! my dear son in law, not even I have heard of this marvel. But come now, perchance my servants may know of it."

Then the beautiful mother fetched her book of spells, turned over the pages, and immediately there appeared two giants.

"What is your pleasure, and what is your command?"

"Look now, my faithful servants, carry me together with my son in law to the wide Ocean, and place us in the very centre of it in the very abyss."

Immediately the two giants caught up the hunter and the beautiful mother, and bore them, as by a hurricane, to the wide Ocean, and placed them in the centre of it, in the very abyss There they stood like two vast columns, and held the hunter and the beautiful mother in their arms. Then the beautiful mother cried with a sweet and crisp voice, and there came swimming up to her all the fishes and creeping things of the sea, so that the blue sea was no longer to be seen for the multitude of them.