Next day when they were driving the geese out through the dark gateway, the maiden said,
"Alas, Falada, hanging there!"
Falada answered,
"Alas, young Queen, how ill you fare!
If this your tender mother knew,
Her heart would surely break in two."
And she sat down again in the field and began to comb out her hair, and Conrad ran and tried to clutch it, so she said in haste,
"Blow, blow, thou gentle wind, I say,
Blow Conrad's little hat away,
And make him chase it here and there,
Until I have braided all my hair.
And bound it up again."
Then the wind blew, and blew his little hat off his head and far away, and Conrad was forced to run after it, and when he came back, her hair had been put up a long time, and he could get none of it, and so they looked after their geese till evening came.
But in the evening after they had got home, Conrad went to the old King, and said, "I won't tend the geese with that girl any longer!" "Why not?" inquired the aged King. "Oh, because she vexes me the whole day long." Then the aged King commanded him to relate what it was that she did to him. And Conrad said, "In the morning when we pass beneath the dark gateway with the flock, there is a sorry horse's head on the wall, and she says to it,
"Alas, Falada, hanging there!"
And the head replies,
"Alas, young Queen how ill you fare!
If this your tender mother knew,
Her heart would surely break in two."
And Conrad went on to relate what happened on the goose pasture, and how when there he had to chase his hat.
