The Golden Blackbird

'Good gracious!' exclaimed the master; 'how is it that he lets you touch him, when no one else can go near him?'

'Perhaps he knows me,' answered the stable-boy.

Two or three days later the master said to him: 'The Porcelain Maiden is here: but, though she is as lovely as the dawn, she is so wicked that she scratches everyone that approaches her. Try if she will accept your services.'

When the youth entered the room where she was, the Golden Blackbird broke forth into a joyful song, and the Porcelain Maiden sang too, and jumped for joy.

'Good gracious!' cried the master. 'The Porcelain Maiden and the Golden Blackbird know you too?'

'Yes,' replied the youth, 'and the Porcelain Maiden can tell you the whole truth, if she only will.'

Then she told all that had happened, and how she had consented to follow the young man who had captured the Golden Blackbird.

'Yes,' added the youth, 'I delivered my brothers, who were kept prisoners in an inn, and, as a reward, they threw me into a lake. So I disguised myself and came here, in order to prove the truth to you.'

So the old lord embraced his son, and promised that he should inherit all his possessions, and he put to death the two elder ones, who had deceived him and had tried to slay their own brother.

The young man married the Porcelain Maiden, and had a splendid wedding-feast.