drake was no other than the King of the Fairies, and he promised
to give the Boy any one of his three daughters to wife if
only he would release him. And the Boy consented, and chose
the daughter that was neither the eldest nor the youngest, but
the middle one. So the drake flew away.
Then after a little time, the middle daughter of the Fairy
King appeared, most beautifully dressed, and in her hand she
carried jewels of priceless value. So the two were married,
though the Fairy King’s daughter foretold to her husband that
she would be able to remain with him only nine years.
So for nine years everything went as happily as it could,
and everything that the Boy wished to have was at once there
ready for him, palaces and cattle and servants and silks and
jewels. And he almost forgot that there had once been a time
when no one would speak to him for his very ugliness.
But at the end of the nine years, the fairy princess vanished
without warning, and with her vanished also all the palaces and
cattle and servants and silks and jewels. So the Boy was heartbroken,
and he went out to search throughout all the land for
the princess, but he found her nowhere. Still he went on
searching, and as he wandered he came one day to the side of a
great lake, and it was the place where he had first seen the
drake and won his bride, nine years before.
And as he stayed to look he saw a huge nest in the rushes by
the side of the lake, and he knew at once what it was. For there
is nothing like the nest of a Gryphon in the world. Luckily for
the Boy the big birds were away and only the young ones were
in the nest, for the Gryphon eats a man at a single meal. And
as he looked in terror lest the parent birds should return, there
came up out of the lake a Dragon, and he crawled towards the
nest to eat up the young Gryphons. Then the Boy ran towards
the nest and fought with the Dragon, and at last towards night
he killed i t ; and just then the parent Gryphons came home;
and they saw the nest and the dead Dragon, and they could
not thank the Boy enough who had saved their young ones from
the Dragon.
Then the Boy told them all his sad story, and asked the
Gryphons if they would help him, and they said that they
would. So the Boy sat upon the back of the male Gryphon
and the Gryphon flew away with him up into the air for a long,
long way until at last they reached the kingdom of the fairies.
And they went into the kingdom.
Now if there is one thing which the fairies and the gods
cannot abide it is the sight of a mortal in their kingdom, so they
all called out to him that he must go. But he said : “ I will
not go except my wife come with me.” And they all called
out upon his boldness and foolhardiness, and told him that he was
but a mortal and might never again mate with a f a i r y But he
held his ground and said, again and again, i' I will not go except
my wife come with me.” And the fairies and the gods wearied
themselves in crying out against him, but always he said the
same thing and retreated not an inch.
So at last, in despair, the King of the Fairies (for he found
that his middle daughter after all was glad at the thought that
she would go back again and be the Boy’s wife, although he was
so ugly) said to her : Go, then, with him, and never again
show yourself here.” And blithely then she went away with
the Boy on the back of the Gryphon, and returned to the Bov’s
country, and there they lived happily ever afterwards.