"There will be a mass for the welfare of the gracious prince and the gracious princess," said the monk.
"The prince, my husband, will not come for four or five days."
"The Lord God will be able to grant happiness even from afar, and in the meanwhile let us poor monks at least bring some wine from the monastery."
"We will gladly repay," said the princess.
When the monk went out, she called: "Hej, Danusia! Danusia! Mount the bench and make our hearts merry with the same song you sang in Zator."
Having heard this, the courtiers put a bench in the centre of the room. The rybalts sat on the ends, and between them stood that young girl who had carried behind the princess the lute ornamented with brass nails. On her head she had a small garland, her hair falling on her shoulders, and she wore a blue dress and red shoes with long points. On the bench she looked like a child, but at the same time, a beautiful child, like some figure from a church. It was evident that she was not singing for the first time before the princess, because she was not embarrassed.
"Sing, Danusia, sing!" the young court girls shouted.
She seized the lute, raised her head like a bird which begins to sing, and having closed her eyes, she began with a silvery voice: "If I only could get The wings like a birdie, I would fly quickly To my dearest Jasiek!"
The rybalts accompanied her, one on the gensliks, the other on a big lute; the princess, who loved the lay songs better than anything else in the world, began to move her head back and forth, and the young girl sang further with a thin, sweet childish voice, like a bird singing in the forest: "I would then be seated On the high enclosure: Look, my dear Jasiulku, Look on me, poor orphan."
And then the rybalts played. The young Zbyszko of Bogdaniec, who being accustomed from childhood to war and its dreadful sights, had never in his life heard anything like it; he touched a Mazur[17] standing beside him and asked: "Who is she?"
"She is a girl from the princess' court. We do not lack rybalts who cheer up the court, but she is the sweetest little rybalt of them all, and to the songs of no one else will the princess listen so gladly."
"I don't wonder. I thought she was an angel from heaven and I can't look at her enough. What do they call her?"