“Tricking the Witch.” The Turnip Princess: and other newly discovered fairy tales, Franz Xaver von Schönwerth, New York: Penguin Books, 2015, pp. 155-157.

Tale Summary

There were once three princesses who were kidnapped by an evil witch, and who in their time of captivity learned a few magic tricks from her. One day, a young prince was lost in the woods, and the witch invited him in with the intent to kill him that night. The youngest of the princesses, named Reinhilda,  warned him, and told him that when he is taken to his room he must jump over the threshold, that he should not touch anything she gives him to drink, and to not sleep in the bed but under it. After dinner the witch showed the young man his bedroom, where he jumped over the threshold. He sneakily poured the drink she handed him into his boot, and settled down under the bed. Later that night, the princess woke him up and fled with him using the magic she had learned. At dawn, Reinhilda realized that the witch had sent one of her sisters to bring her back. She changed herself into a rose bush and turned him into a rose, and because her sister hated the smell of the flowers, she went back. The witch scolded her before sending the eldest princess to go catch them. When Reinhilda realized that again they were being pursued, she turned herself into a church, and the prince climbed on the pulpit to hold a sermon about the sinister magic of witches. When the sister caught up to them she heard the sermon and returned home to the witch, who set out after the two lovers herself. Reinhilda’s  magic was no match for that of the witch, and so she grabbed the prince’s sword and turned herself into a pond and him into a duck. The witch did all she could to lure the duck to land, but the princess had warned him not to do this, and so he remained in the center of the pond. The  old woman then drank all of the water in the pond, and so the princess was in the belly of the witch. She turned back into a human, and used the sword to cut her open. With her dead, the two were married and lived happily ever after with the sisters, who had been freed from their spell.