German Version.

A king, who dwelt on the Keuterberg, was out hunting one day, when he was seen
by three young girls who were watching their cows on the mountain, and the
eldest, pointing to him, calls out to the two others, "If I do not get that
one, I’ll have none;" the second, from another part of the hill, pointing to
the one who was on the king’s right hand, cries "If I don’t get that one, I’ll
have none;" and the youngest, pointing to the one who was on the king’s left
hand, shouts, "And if I don’t get him, I’ll have none." When the king has
returned home he sends for the three girls, and after questioning them as to
what they had said to each other about himself and his two ministers, he takes
the eldest girl for his own wife and marries the two others to the ministers.
The king was very fond of his wife, for she was fair and beautiful of face,
and when he had to go abroad for a season he left her in charge of the two
sisters who were the wives of his ministers, as she was about to become a
mother. Now the two sisters had no children, and when the queen gave birth to
a boy who "brought a red star into the world with him," they threw him into
the river, whereupon a little bird flew up into the air, singing:

"To thy death art thou sped,
Until God’s word be said.
In the white lily bloom,
Brave boy, is thy tomb."

When the king came home they told him his queen had been delivered of a dog,
and he said, "What God does is well done." The same thing happens the two
following years: when the queen had another little boy, the sisters
substituted a dog and the king said "What God does is well done;" but when she
was delivered of a beautiful little girl, and they told the king she had this
time borne a cat, he grew angry and ordered the poor queen to be thrown into
prison. On each occasion a fisherman who dwelt near the river drew the child
from the water soon after it was thrown in, and having no children, his wife
lovingly reared them. When they had grown up, the eldest once went with some
other boys to fish, and they would not have him with them, saying to him, "Go
away, foundling." The boy, much grieved, goes to the fisherman and asks
whether he is a foundling, and the old man tells him the whole story, upon
which the youth, spite of the fisherman’s entreaties, at once sets off to seek
his father. After walking for many days he came to a great river, by the side
of which was an old woman fishing. He accosted her very respectfully, and she
took him on her back and carried him across the water. When a year had gone
by, the second boy set out in search of his brother, and the same happened to
him as to the elder one. Then the girl went to look for her two brothers, and
coming to the water she said to the old woman, "Good day, mother. May God help
you with your fishing." (The brothers had said to her that she would seek long
enough before she caught any fish, and she replied, "And thou wilt seek long
enough before thou findest thy father"—hence their failure in their quest.)

When the old woman heard that, she became quite friendly, and carried her over
the water, gave her a wand, and said to her, "Go, my daughter, ever onwards by
this road and when you come to a great black dog, you must pass it silently
and boldly, without either laughing or looking at it. Then you will come to a
great high castle, on the threshold of which you must let the wand fall, and
go straight through the castle and out again on the other side. There you will
see an old fountain out of which a large tree has grown whereon hangs a bird
in a cage, which you must take down. Take likewise a glass of water out of the
fountain, and with these two things go back by the same way. Pick up the wand
again from the threshold and take it with you, and when you again pass by the
dog strike him in the face with it, but be sure that you hit him, and then
just come back here to me." The maiden found everything exactly as the old
woman had said, and on her way hack she found her two brothers who had sought
each other over half the world. They went together where the black dog was
lying on the road; she struck it in the face and it turned into a handsome
prince, who went with them to the river. There the old woman was still
standing. She rejoiced much to see them again, and carried them all over the
water, and then she too went away, for now she was freed. The others, however,
went to the old fisherman, and all were glad that they had found each other
again, and they hung the bird in its cage on the wall. But the second son
could not settle at home, and took his cross-bow and went a-hunting. When he
was tired he took his flute and played on it. The king happened to be also
hunting, and hearing the music went up to the youth and said, "Who has given
thee leave to hunt here?" "O. no one." "To whom dost thou belong, then?" "I am
the fisherman’s son." "But he has no children." "If thou wilt not believe it,
come with me." The king did so, and questioned the fisherman, who told the
whole story, and the little bird on the wall began to sing:

"The mother sits alone
There in the prison small;
O King of the royal blood,
These are thy children all.

The sisters twain, so false,
They wrought the children woe,
There in the waters deep,
Where the fishers come and go."

Then the king took the fisherman, the three little children, and the bird back
with him to the castle, and ordered his wife to be taken out of prison and
brought before him. She had become very ill and weak, but her daughter gave
her some of the water of the fountain to drink and she became strong and
healthy. But the two false sisters were burnt, and the maiden was married to
the Prince.

Even in Iceland, as already stated, the same tale has long cheered the hardy
peasant’s fire-side circle, while the "wind without did roar and rustle." That
it should have reached that out-of-the-way country through Galland’s version
is surely inconceivable, notwithstanding the general resemblance which it
bears to the "Histoire des S£urs jalouses de leur Cadette." It is found in
Powell and Magn·sson’s "Legends of Iceland," second series, and as that
excellent work is not often met with (and why so, I cannot understand),
moreover, as the story is told with much na’vetÚ, I give it here in full: