The Forbidden Chamber1
Once there was an evil wizard who, dressed as a beggar, would go from house to house asking for alms and would steal the prettiest girls he could find. None of them could ever return home.
One day he knocked on the door of a house where lived a man with three beautiful daughters. The eldest2 opened the door and gave him a piece of bread.
When she gave it to him he touched her arm and hypnotized her. Then he made her enter the basket that he always carried on his back and took her to his house which was situated3 in the midst of the woods. Everything there was magnificent, and she had everything she could wish for.
After a few days the wizard told her that he had to go on a journey, that he would leave her the keys to all the house, and that she could enter every room except one. If she should enter that room she would surely die. Also, he gave her an egg and asked her to take good care of it.
As soon as the wizard was out of sight, the girl looked into every room and found beautiful things that delighted her. At last she approached the prohibited chamber and after a moment's indecision, her curiosity won and she entered the room.
What she saw made her tremble. There were hundreds of girls that had been kidnapped and all looked as if they had fallen asleep. The girl, frightened at the sight, went running out of the room as fast as she could.
In her haste she dropped the egg that she carried in her hand, but it did not break. When she picked it up she noticed that the egg had turned red, and althought she tried to clean it, the egg stayed red.
After some time the wizard came back. He noticed what had happened to the egg, struck the girl, and dragged her into the prohibited chamber, where he left her with the others.
The wizard then went back to the same house and stole the second sister and the same thing happened to her.
He went back a third time and kidnapped the younger sister, but this sister was very wise. When the wizard gave her the keys and the egg, she took the egg and deposited it in the cupboard. Then she took the keys and went into the prohibited chamber. She was amazed at seeing so many girls lying as if in a profound sleep. Amongst them she recognized her two sisters.
She left the room and closed the door. When she heard the wizard returning, she took the egg and the keys and went to meet him.
"You shall be my wife because you have resisted curiosity," he exclaimed.
As the girl had broken the spell, the wizard had lost his power and she could do with him as she pleased, so she went to the prohibited chamber and awoke all the girls. Then she went to the wizard and told him.
"Before I marry you, you must go and take a basket full of gold to my parents."
She took a great big basket and in it she hid her two sisters covering them with pieces of gold. Then she tol
d the wizard to take the basket but not to stop on the road because she would be watching him from the window. The man took the basket and started walking but soon was worn out by fatigue4. He sat down to rest, but immediately heard a voice which said "I am watching you from my window." Thinking it was the voice of his future wife, he got up and walked a while longer. Everytime he tried to rest, the same thing happened, until finally he reached the house where his fiancée's parents lived. There he left the basket.
In the meantime, his future wife took a piece of cardboard and made a head which she placed on the window sill of the second floor, making it look as if someone was watching from the window. Then she went and let out the other victims and invited them all to her wedding. Finally, she covered her whole body with feathers, disguising herself as a rare bird so that no one could recognize her, and left the house. Soon she met some of the guests that she had invited to the wedding and they asked her:
"From where do you come beautiful bird?"
"From the house where the wizard is being wedded5."
"And please tell, what does the beautiful bride do?"
"After being all dressed up in her beautiful wedding gown she leans out of the window looking down."
When the wizard returned home, the window of the second floor was open, he looked towards it and saw the head there. He thought it was his future wife and he ran excitedly into the house, but upon entering he encountered all the family and sisters of the girl, who dragged him into the chamber, locked the door and set fire to the house.
And this was the end of the wizard and his prohibited chamber.
