A king's daughter is to be surrendered to a dragon, and on the appointed hill a young huntsman takes her place. The "seven-headed dragon" comes "with loud roaring", breathing fire from seven jaws; the huntsman's animals trample the flames while he strikes off the heads three at a time, until the beast is torn to pieces. Rescued, the maiden divides her coral necklace among the animals, and then — the tale's hinge — "Her pocket-handkerchief, however, on which was her name" she gives to the huntsman, who "cut the tongues out of the dragon's seven heads" and wraps them carefully within it.

The theft comes while the hero sleeps: the king's marshal cuts off his head, carries away the princess, and gives out that he himself killed the dragon. What undoes the lie is not strength but the folded cloth. At the wedding the true slayer draws forth the seven tongues; the king fits "each tongue in the mouth to which it belonged", and "it fitted exactly". Then he takes up the handkerchief "on which the name of the princess was embroidered" and asks the maiden to whom she gave it — and the marshal's account falls apart.

This rests on a narrow shelf. The record files the named-handkerchief token at a single address and fills it with this one German tale, the brothers Grimm's Household Tales (collected 1812–1857; this translation 1884); no second witness stands beside it. The tongues prove the deed was done; the embroidered name proves whose hand did it — the difference between what happened and who is owed for it. Why is it the girl's small handkerchief, and not the trophy torn from the monster, that the story trusts to carry her rescuer's name?