named her
Rebuliina,[150] which puzzled everybody. A noble lord stood sponsor for
the prince, who was named Villem. The godmother then gave the queen many
instructions concerning the rearing of the children, and told her to
keep the box with the eggshells always beside them in the cradle, to
ward off evil from them. Then she took her leave, and the queen gave out
that she was a great princess from a foreign country.

The children throve, and the nurse observed that a strange lady
sometimes came to gaze on the princess by night. Two years afterwards
the queen fell sick, and gave over the princess to the charge of the
nurse, directing her, under oath of secrecy, to fasten the talisman
round the neck of the child when she was ten years old. She then sent
for the king, and begged him to let the nurse remain with the princess
as long as the princess herself wished it, and after this she expired.

The king then brought home the inevitable cruel stepmother, who could
not endure the sight of the children. When the princess was ten years
old, her nurse put the talisman round her neck, but the thoughtless girl
stowed it away with some other relics of her mother, and forgot it till
a year or two afterwards, when the king was absent, and her stepmother
cruelly beat her. She ran crying into the house, and looked in the box,
but rinding only a handful of wool and two empty eggshells in the box,
threw them out of the window, along with a small feather which was under
the wool. Immediately her godmother stood before her, and soothed and
comforted her. She charged her to submit to her stepmother's tyranny,
but always to carry the talisman in her bosom, for then no one could
injure her, and when she was grown up, her stepmother would have no
further power over her. The feather, too, would summon her godmother
whenever she needed her. The lady then took the girl into the garden,
pronounced a spell over the little box, and fetched out supper from it,
teaching the princess the spell by which she could obtain what she
needed from it. But after this time her stepmother grew much more
friendly to her.

The princess grew up a peerless maiden; but at length war broke out, and
the royal city, and even the palace, were in such straits that Rebuliina
summoned her godmother to her aid; but she told her that though she
could rescue her, the rest must abide their fate. She then led her
invisibly out of the city through the besieging army, and next d