There stood the poor maiden, who had wandered so far and was again forsaken! She sat down and cried, but at last she took courage and said, “Still I will go as far as the Wind blows and as long as the cock crows, until I find him.”
She went forth by long, long roads, until at last she came to the castle, where both of them were living together. There she heard that a feast was to be held, in which they would celebrate their wedding, but she said, “God still helps me,” and opened the casket that the Sun had given her. A dress lay therein as brilliant as the sun itself.
So she took it out and put it on, and went up into the castle, and every one, even the Bride, looked at her with astonishment. The dress pleased the Bride so well that she thought it might do for her wedding-dress, and asked if it was for sale?
“Not for money or land,” answered she, “but for flesh and blood.”
The Bride asked her what she meant by that, then she said, “Let me sleep a night in the chamber where the Bridegroom sleeps.”
The Bride would not, yet wanted very much to have the dress. At last she consented, but the page was to give the Prince a sleeping-draught.
When it was night, and the youth was already asleep, she was led into the chamber. She seated herself on the bed and said, “I have followed you for seven years. I have been to the Sun and the Moon, and the Four Winds, and have inquired for you and have helped you against the Dragon. Will you, then, forget me?”
But the Prince slept so soundly that it only seemed to him as if the wind were whistling outside in the fir-trees. When therefore day broke, she was led out again, and had to give up the golden dress. And as that had been of no avail, she was sad, went out into a meadow, sat down there, and wept.
While she was sitting there, she thought of the egg which the Moon had given her. She opened it, and there came out a clucking hen with twelve chickens all of gold. They ran about chirping, and crept again under the old hen’s wings. Nothing more beautiful was ever seen in the world!
She arose, and drove them through the meadow. The Bride looked out of the window, and the little chickens pleased her so that she came down and asked if they were for sale.