I am just
going then, answers she, to treat her as she has treated my son.
I agree to it, said I, provided you restore my son to me
beforehand.
Then the maid took a vessel full of water, pronounced words over
it that I did not understand, and addressing herself to the calf,
O calf, says she, if thou wast created by the almighty and
sovereign Master of the world, such as you appear at this time,
continue in that form: but, if thou art a man, and changed into a
calf by enchantment, return to thy natural shape by the
permission of the Sovereign Creator. As she spoke these words,
she threw water upon him, and in an instant he recovered his
first shape.
My son, my dear son, cried I! immediately embracing him with such
a transport of joy that I knew not what I was doing; it is Heaven
that has sent us this young maid to take off the horrible charm
by which you were enchanted, and to avenge the injury done to you
and your mother. I doubt not but, in acknowledgment, you will
take your deliverer to wife, as I have promised. He consented to
it with joy; but, before they were married, she changed my wife
into a bitch, and this is she you see here. I desired she should
have this shape, rather than another less agreeable, that we
might see her in the family without horror.
Since that time my son has become a widower, and gone to travel;
and it being several years since I heard of him, I am come abroad
to inquire after him; and not being willing to trust any body
with my wife while I should come home, I thought it fit to carry
her every where with me.
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