at the beautiful flowers, ruby-red, sky-blue, that grew there.
Then they began to dig up the knoll and discovered the dead body. The father clasped his hands, groaned as he recognised his unfortunate daughter, saw her lying there slain, not knowing by whom she had been buried. And all the good folks asked who had been the slayers, who had been the murderers. Then the pipe began playing and speaking of itself. "O my light, my father, my sisters called me to the wood: they killed me here to get my saucer, my silver saucer, and my crystal apple. You cannot raise me from my heavy sleep till you get water from the Tsar's well."
The two envious sisters trembled, paled, and their soul was in flames. They acknowledged their guilt. They were seized, bound, locked up in a dark vault at the Tsar's pleasure. But the father set out on his way to the capital city. The road was long or short. At last he reached the town and came up to the palace. The Tsar, the little sun, was coming down the golden staircase. The old man bowed down to the earth and asked for the Tsar's mercy. Then the Tsar, the hope, said, "Take the water of life from the Tsar's well. When your daughter revives, bring her here with the saucer, the apple, and the evil-doing sisters."
The old man was overjoyed, bowed down to earth and took the phial with the living water, ran into the wood to the flowery knoll, and took up the body. As soon as ever he sprinkled it with the water his daughter sprang up in front of him alive, and hung like a dove upon her father's neck. All the people gathered together and wept. The old man went to the capital city. He was taken into the Tsar's rooms. The Tsar, the little sun, appeared, saw the old man with his three daughters, two tied by the hands, and the third daughter like a spring flower, the light of Paradise in her eyes, with the
