‘Brush our hair and clean our shoes, and fasten our buckles, for we are going to the feast at the King’s palace.’
Ashenputtel obeyed, but wept, for she also would gladly have gone to the ball with them, and begged her step-mother to give her leave to go.
‘You, Ashenputtel!’ she said. ‘Why, you are covered with dust and dirt. You go to the festival! Besides you have no clothes or shoes, and yet you want to go to the ball.’
As she, however, went on asking, her Step-mother said:
‘Well, I have thrown a dishful of lentils into the cinders, if you have picked them all out in two hours you shall go with us.’
The girl went through the back door into the garden, and cried, ‘Ye gentle doves, ye turtle doves, and all ye little birds under heaven, come and help me,
The bad into your crops can go.’
Then two white doves came in by the kitchen window, and were followed by the turtle doves, and finally all the little birds under heaven flocked in, chirping, and settled down among the ashes. And the doves gave a nod with their little heads, peck, peck, peck; and then the rest began also, peck, peck, peck, and collected all the good beans into the dish. Scarcely had an hour passed before they had finished, and all flown out again.
Then the girl brought the dish to her Step-mother, and was delighted to think that now she would be able to go to the feast with them.
But she said, ‘No, Ashenputtel, you have no clothes, and cannot dance; you will only be laughed at.’
But when she began to cry, the Step-mother said:
‘If you can pick out two whole dishes of lentils from the ashes in an hour, you shall go with us.’
And she thought, ‘She will never be able to do that.’
When her Step-mother had thrown the dishes of lentils
