Maria was greatly perplexed by what her husband had told her, so she determined one night to watch him.  She discovered that, as soon as the other people were asleep, her husband became transformed into a handsome prince and left the palace, leaving behind him his cat’s dress.  As soon as he had gone, Maria took the cast-off clothing of her husband and cast it into the fire.  Singalong smelt it burning and returned to the palace, where he found his wife and begged her to return to him his cat’s dress.  This she was unable to do, since it was entirely consumed.  As a result, Singalong was obliged to retain the form of a prince, but he was afraid to appear before the king in this guise, and so hid himself.

In the morning, Maria went to the king and told him the truth about her husband.  Her father, however, thought that she was crazy, and when she insisted, invited her to accompany him to Amo-Mongo’s farm, in order to convince her of her error.  Many people went with them, and Amo-Mongo led them to the farm, which was really Singalong’s, but told them that it belonged to himself.  Besides other things, Singalong had planted many fruits, among them atimon and candol.

Amo-Mongo, seeing the diversity of fruits, began to eat all he could, until he became unable to move a step.  Whenever his wife urged him to come away, he would take an atimon under his arm and a candol or so in his hands, until at last his wife, angry at his greediness, gave him a push which caused him to fall headlong, striking his head against a stone and being instantly killed.

Then Singalong, who had secretly followed the crowd from the palace, showed himself to the king in his proper form.  After making suitable explanations, he led them to a fine palace in the middle of the hacienda.  There they all lived together, but Pusong and his wife, who in former times had treated Singalong very harshly, giving him only the bones and scraps from the table, were now obliged to act as servants in the kitchen of the king’s new palace.

CHAPTER 8

The Enchanted Ring.

There was once a king who had suffered for a long time with a painful disease, in spite of all the efforts of the doctors to cure it.  At last he caused a proclamation to be made that whoever could cure him should marry his daughter as a reward.

One day a snake appeared before the king and asked permission to cure him.  The king at first refused, but the snake said that his body contained some gall whose power to cure was wonderful, so the king consented to try it, and was soon cured.

The snake was really a prince who had been changed into this form by enchantment.  Every night he took on his proper form and went for a walk around the city.  His wife once saw him do this, so she asked him to tell her the truth.  The snake told her his secret, but forbade her to tell any one, on pain of his leaving her.