The Bridge Story ID | Page 4

The sisters are Reunited

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Legends from Palermo

02

The King of Spain's two daughters

Now let’s leave the prince and return to the king’s of Spain daughter. When she came in the evening to get her doll, she found it missing and burst into tears. She pounded her chest, tore her hair, and made such a huge uproar that her father came and asked, “what’s the matter?” “What’s the matter? The matter is that someone came and stole my doll from the window. Hearing this the king announced that a reward of thousand gold coins would be granted to whoever could find the doll. But not a single person appeared to collect the reward. The princess in her despair decided to leave the palace. After she went away, she ended up finding work as servant in the household of the king of Portugal. One day, as she happened to be bringing the king’s son his meal, she looked through the door and saw her doll was right there inside the prince’s room. Poor girl! The blood froze in her veins at the sight of it.

So what did she do? She forced open the door, seized the doll, and ran off quick as lightning back to her father’s palace. But her father did not recognize her any longer because smog had blackened her face. So gave a job as his doorkeeper. Now in the king’s garden there’s was a fountain and one side had a broken bottom that provided space for an underground chamber. It was the customs for all the poor people to come to the king and bag for alms which irritated him. So he told his doorkeeper if she allowed one more person to enter, he would have her thrown down into the fountain deep chamber. But she paid no attention to this and she continued to let the poor people in. Finally, the king carried out his threat and had her thrown into his dark chamber. Once she was there, she began looking around and saw a little hole.