Note 3 — Chapter III · BUKOWINA-GYPSY STORIES

Somewhere there was a hunter’s son, a soldier; and there was also a shoemaker’s daughter. She had a dream that if he took her to wife, and if she fell pregnant by him, she would bring forth twins—the boy with a golden star upon his breast, and the girl with a golden star upon the brow. And he presently took her to wife. And she was poor, that shoemaker’s daughter; and he was rich. So his parents did not like her for a daughter-in-law. She became with child to him; and he went off to serve as a soldier. Within a year she brought forth. When that befell, she had twins exactly as she had said. She bore a boy and a girl; the boy had a golden star upon his breast, and the girl had a golden star upon her brow. But his parents threw the twins into diamond chests, wrote a label for each of them, and put it in the chest. Then they let them swim away down the Vah river.3