But the Princess didn't forget to go on working on her shirts, and she
neither talked nor laughed nor wept. However, when she had spun and
woven and cut, she found that she still had not enough cloth for the
twelve shirts, and she needs must go to the witches' moor again.

So that night while all the palace slept she quietly slipped out and
walked off to pick her thistledown, but the old woman who was the King's
guardian saw her, and she knew well where the young Queen was going, for
I must tell you she was the same wicked witch who had changed the twelve
Princes into wild ducks. She hurried to the King's chamber, woke him and
said, "Now, come with me and I'll prove to you that your lovely Queen is
a witch, who joins the wicked company on the moor at midnight." The King
would not listen to her at first, but when he saw that the Queen's bed
was empty, he got up and went with the old woman.

And there upon the edge of the moor they stopped, but in the clear
moonlight they could see the Queen among the horrid hags and trolls. The
King turned away sadly and said not a word, for he loved his quiet Queen
very much.

But the wicked old woman began to whisper and tell abroad about the
Queen's nightly visit to the moor, and at last the King's best men came
to him and said, "We will not have a Queen who is a witch; the people
demand of you that she be burnt alive."

Then the King was so sad that there was no end to his sadness, for now
he saw that he could not save her. He was obliged to order her to be
burnt alive on a pile of wood. When the pile was all ablaze, and they
were about to put her on it, she made signs to them to take twelve
boards and lay them around the pile.