"It is the lap-dog that is in and out after the queen that I wish for."
"Ha!" said the king, "it is your mightiness and pride that has caused the loss of your means; but if you become a good man you shall get this along with the rest."
O'Cronicert bade the king good-bye, took the lap-dog, leapt on the back of the old lame white horse, and went off at speed through wood, and over moss and rugged ground. After he had gone some distance through the wood a roebuck leapt up and the lap-dog went after it. In a moment the deer started up as a woman behind O'Cronicert, the handsomest that eye had ever seen from the beginning of the universe till the end of eternity. She said to him, "Call your dog off me."
"I will do so if you promise to marry me," said O'Cronicert.
"If you keep three vows that I shall lay upon you I will marry you," said she.
"The first is that you do not go to ask your worldly king to a feast or a dinner without first letting me know," said she.
"Hoch!" said O'Cronicert, "do you think that I cannot keep that vow? I would never go to invite my worldly king without informing you that I was going to do so. It is easy to keep that vow."
"The second vow is," said she, "that you do not cast up to me in any company or meeting in which we shall be together, that you found me in the form of a deer."
"Hoo!" said O'Cronicert, "you need not to lay that vow upon me. I would keep it at any rate."
"The third vow is," said she, "that you do not leave me in the company of only one man while you go out." It was agreed between them that she should marry him.
They reached the old tumble-down black house. Grass they cut in the clefts and ledges of the rocks; a bed they made and laid down. O'Cronicert's wakening from sleep was the lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep and the neighing of mares, while he himself was in a bed of gold on wheels of silver, going from end to end of the Tower of Castle Town.
"I am sure that you are surprised," said she.
"In my own room," said he. "I never had such a room."
"I know well that you never had," said she; "but you have it now. So long as you keep me you shall keep the room."
He then rose, and put on his clothes, and went out. He took a look at the house when he went out; and it was a palace, the like of which he had never seen, and the king himself did not possess. He then took a walk round the farm; and he never saw so many cattle, sheep, and horses as were on it. He returned to the house, and said to his wife that the farm was being ruined by other people's cattle and sheep. "It is not," said she: "your own cattle and sheep are on it."