The old woman, pretending to be a chambermaid, closed me and shut out the light. In the dark, many terrible things happened. The chambermaid took the weakened queen to the bath, and suffocated her in the hellish heat of the fire she made in the room.

Then she put her one-eyed daughter into the king’s bed, and changed her into the shape of the queen. She could not give her two eyes, so she told her to lie on one side.

When the king came in, he went to open me and bring in the light. But the old woman quickly called out, “For your life, leave the curtains closed; the queen ought not to see the light yet, and must have rest.”

Ah, but this one-eyed girl will never see the light. Nor can she see the dead queen who comes at night, in a ghostly shape.

The Drawn Curtain in Brother and Sister, Grimms. Painting “Travels of the Soul” by Howard Pyle.