her spell and kept him in fairyland, away from his realm, until his faithful friends at last found him and induced him to return, for his country was going to rack and ruin, and even its capital had fallen into the enemy’s hands.  The loving fairy herself sends the prince back to his country; for the oracle has decreed that she shall lay upon her lover the severest of tasks.  Only by performing this task triumphantly can he make it possible for her to leave the immortal world of fairies in order to share the fate of her earthly lover, as his wife.  In a moment of deepest despair about the state of his country, the fairy queen appears to him and purposely destroys his faith in her by deeds of the most cruel and inexplicable nature.  Driven mad by a thousand fears, Arindal begins to imagine that all the time he has been dealing with a wicked sorceress, and tries to escape the fatal spell by pronouncing a curse upon Ada.  Wild with sorrow, the unhappy fairy sinks down, and reveals their mutual fate to the lover, now lost to her for ever, and tells him that, as a punishment for having disobeyed the decree of Fate, she is doomed to be turned into stone (in Gozzi’s version she becomes a serpent).  Immediately afterwards it appears that all the catastrophes which the fairy had prophesied were but deceptions:  victory over the enemy as well as the growing prosperity and welfare of the kingdom now follow in quick succession:  Ada is taken away by the Fates, and Arindal, a raving madman, remains behind alone.  The terrible sufferings of his madness do not, however, satisfy the Fates:  to bring about his utter ruin they appear before the repentant man and invite him to follow them to the nether world, on the pretext of enabling him to free Ada from the spell.  Through the treacherous promises of the wicked fairies Arindal’s madness grows into sublime exaltation; and one of his household magicians, a faithful friend, having in the meantime equipped him with magic weapons and charms, he now follows the traitresses.  The latter cannot get over their astonishment when they see how Arindal overcomes one after the other of the monsters of the infernal regions:  only when they arrive at the vault in which they show him the stone in human shape do they recover their hope of vanquishing the valiant prince, for, unless he can break the charm which binds Ada, he must share her fate and be doomed to remain a stone for ever.  Arindal, who until then has been using the dagger and the shield given him by the friendly magician, now makes use of an instrument—­a lyre—­which he has brought with him, and the meaning of which he had not yet understood.  To the sounds of this instrument he now expresses his plaintive moans, his remorse, and his overpowering longing for his enchanted queen.  The stone is moved by the magic of his love:  the beloved one is released.  Fairyland with all its marvels opens its portals, and the mortal learns that, owing to his former inconstancy, Ada has lost the right to become his wife on earth, but that her beloved, through his great and magic power, has earned the right to live for ever by her side in fairyland.