The youngest son has returned to present the magic brocade to his mother.

He entered his mother’s room and unrolled the brocade. It gleamed so brightly that the widow gasped and opened her eyes, finding her sight entirely restored. Instantly cured of all illness, she rose for her bed.

Together she and her son took the precious work outside to see it in the bright light. As they unrolled it, a strange, fragrant breeze sprang up and blew upon the brocade, drawing it out longer and longer and wider and wider until at last is covered all the land in sight. suddenly the silken threads trembled and the picture burst into life. Scarlet flowers waved in the soft wind. animals stirred and grazed upon the tender grasses of the vast fields. Golden birds darted in and out of the handsome trees and about the grand white house that commanded the landscape.

It was all exactly as the mother had woven it, except that now there was a beautiful girl in red standing by the fish pond. It was the fairy who had embroidered herself into the brocade.

The kind widow, thrilled with her good fortune, went out among her poor neighbors and asked them to come to live on her new land, and share the abundance of her fields and gardens.

It will not surprise you to learn that the youngest son married the beautiful fairy girl  and they lived together happily for many, many years.

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Next time: “The Beggars’ Shame”