The young man thanked the ogress for all the things she had given him and for all the things she had shown him. In the morning, when the ogress went to bathe in the river, he took the seven cocks and the pigeon and killed them, and dashed the spinning wheel to the ground and broke it to pieces. As he destroyed the birds and the spinning wheel, the ogress, the ogre, and their seven sons in different parts of the world perished, making horrible sounds. Then he put the starling in a cage, took it and the precious medicine for restoring sight to the blind, and started back for the king's palace. His first stop was at the well, where he gave the eye medicine to his mother and the other women and restored their eyesight. They all clambered out of the well and went with him to the palace. He asked them to wait in one of the rooms while he went to the king and prepared him for their coming.

"O king," he said, "I've many secrets to reveal. Please hear me. Your wife is a ogress, and has been plotting against my life because she knows I am the son of one of your wives. You remember the seven queens you threw into a well at her instigation? I am your son by the seventh queen. Your eighth queen, the ogress, is afraid you'll discover one day soon who I am and that I'll become heir to the throne. She wants me dead. I've just slain her father and mother and seven brothers, and now I'll kill her. Her life is in this starling." Saying this, he twisted the neck of the bird, and the wicked queen died on the spot with a broken neck. And when she died, her original, ghastly ogress form returned to her as she lay sprawled on the ground. "Now come with me," he said to his father, and took him to his seven queens. "Here are your true wives. There were seven sons born to your house, but six of them died to satisfy the pangs of hunger in that well of death. Only I have survived."

"Oh, what have I done!" cried the king. "I was deceived, I was blind, and I've done terrible things to my innocent wives." And he wept bitterly.

He gave his kingdom into the hands of his only son, who governed it wisely. The young king also conquered the surrounding countries with the help of the magic bar of soap, the needles, and the water that the ogress had given him. The old king spent the rest of his days happily with his seven good wives.
关键字:恶魔女王
生词表: