Note 3 — Chapter V · SLOVAK, MORAVIAN, AND BOHEMIAN GYPSY STORIES

So through each door he passed; then he passed through the third, there were a quantity of swords. He saw they were very fine swords, and took one of them. Then he went to the fourth, opened it slowly; it did not stop him, for the keys were there. Through the keyhole he saw a bed. Then he opened it, and went in. There he saw a princess lying, quite naked, but3 covered with a cloth of gold. At her feet stood a table, on which lay a pair of golden scissors. There were golden clasps, and there were two rings, and her name was engraved inside one of them. And when he sees her sleeping thus, he thought, ‘O great God, what if I were to lie down beside her! Do, my God, as thou wilt.’ So he took the scissors, and cut off half the cloth of gold, and lay down beside her; and she could not awake. Then he arose, and took to himself the half of the coverlet and one of the rings and one of her slippers, and went out, taking the sword with him, and shutting the door. As he passed through the fourth door he said to himself, ‘I must open it carefully, so as not to waken her mother and father.’ He got out safely, then he went through the courtyard to the robbers. When he reached the hole he said to them, ‘My dear men, I know where she is. Come, we’ll soon have the princess, but you must creep through the hole one after the other.’ Then he drew his sword, and, as one came through after the other, he seized him by the head, cut off his head, and cast him aside. When he had done so to the twenty-fourth, he cast away the sword, and returned by the way that he had come to his mother, where they had slept. (He had thought never again to see his mother and his brother.) When he came to his mother, he said, ‘Mother, how do you find yourself? you must be sleepy.’