At evening home the brothers came, flapping and whirring like wild
ducks, and all night they were Princes, but in the morning off they flew
again, and were wild ducks the whole day.

But, it happened one night when she was out on the moor picking
thistledown, that the young King who ruled that land was out hunting,
and had lost his way. He had become separated from his companions, and
now, as he came riding across the moor, he saw her. He stopped and
wondered who the lovely lady could be that walked alone on the moor
picking thistledown in the dead of the night; and he asked her name.
Getting no answer, he was still more astonished, but he liked her so
much, that at last nothing would do but he must take her home to his
castle and marry her. So he took her and put her upon his horse. The
Princess wrung her hands, and made signs to him, and pointed to the bags
in which her work was, and when the King saw she wished to have them
with her he took the bags and placed them behind them.

When that was done the Princess, little by little, came to herself, for
the King was both a wise man and a handsome man, and he was as gentle
and kind to her as a mother. But when they reached the palace an old
woman met them. She was the King's guardian, and when she set eyes on
the Princess she became so cross and jealous of her, because she was so
lovely, that she said to the King:

"Can't you see now, that this thing whom you have picked up, and whom
you are going to marry, is a witch? Why, she can neither talk nor laugh
nor weep!"

But the King did not care a straw for what she said. He held to the
wedding and married the Princess, and they lived in great joy and glory.