their rags, as if they were going to bathe, whereupon they began digging up the freshly made graves with their long, bony fingers, pulling out the corpses and eating their flesh. Elisa had to pass close by them, and they glared at her with their evil eyes, but she said her prayers, gathered the stinging nettles, and carried them home to the palace.
Only one human being had seen her, and that was the archbishop; he had been up while the others slept. Now he was convinced that there was something wrong with the queen: she was a witch, and that explained how she had been able to bewitch the king and the whole of the people.
He told the king in the confessional what he had seen and what he feared, but as the terrible words came from his lips the carved images of saints shook their heads as if they wanted to say: "It is not true; Elisa is innocent." The archbishop, however, had quite a different explanation: he said that they bore witness against her, and that they shook their heads at her sins. A couple of bitter tears rolled down the king's cheeks, and he went home with doubt in his heart. That night he pretended to sleep, but no peaceful slumber closed his eyes; he saw how Elisa got up from her bed, and every night afterward she did the same. Every time he followed quietly after her, and saw her disappear in her private room.
Day by day his brow became darker. Elisa noticed this, but she could not understand the reason. It made her anxious, however, and increased the suffering she endured on her brothers' account. Her hot tears flowed down upon the royal velvet and purple, and lay there like sparkling diamonds, and all who saw the splendor that surrounded her wished to be a queen. She would soon be finished with her work: only one shirt was wanting; but she had no more flax, and not a single nettle. Once more, and only this once, would she have to go to the churchyard and gather a few handfuls of nettles. She thought with dread of the lonely walk and the horrible witches, but her will was as firm as was her trust in the Lord.
Elisa went, but was followed by the king and the archbishop. They saw her disappear through the iron gate of the churchyard, and when they came up to it they saw the witches sitting on the tombstone, just as Elisa had seen them. The king turned away at the thought that she, whose head had rested on his breast that very evening, might be amongst them. "The people must judge her," he said. And the people gave judgment that "she was to be burned by the devouring fire."
From the magnificent halls of the royal palace she was conducted to a dark, damp dungeon, into which the wind whistled through the grated windows; instead of velvet and silks they gave her the bundle of nettles she had gathered to rest her head upon. The hard, stinging shirts of mail which she had knitted were to serve her as mattress and coverlet, but they could not have given her anything she could have prized more. She began her work again and prayed to God, while outside the boys in
