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Title: Turkish fairy tales and folk tales collected by Dr. Ignácz Kúnos - Translated from the Hungarian version by R. Nisbet Bain. Illustrated by Celia Levetus.
Author: Kúnos, Ignácz
Language: English
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COLLECTED BY DR. IGNÁCZ KÚNOS ***
TURKISH FAIRY TALES
[Illustration:
TURKISH FAIRY TALES
AND FOLK TALES
Collected by Dʳ. Ignácz Kúnos
Translated from the Hungarian version
BY
R.NISBET.BAIN.
Illustrated by
Celia Levetus
London
A. H. Bullen
18 Cecil Court, W.C.
1901]
PREFACE
These stories were collected from the mouths of the Turkish peasantry by
the Hungarian savant Dr. Ignatius Kunos, during his travels through
Anatolia,[1] and published for the first time in 1889 by the well-known
Hungarian Literary Society, “A Kisfaludy Társaság,” under the Title of
_Török Népmések_ (“Turkish Folk Tales”), with an introduction by
Professor Vámbery. That distinguished Orientalist, certainly the
greatest living authority on the primitive culture of the Turko-Tartaric
peoples, who is as familiar with Uzbeg epics and Uiguric didactics as
with the poetical masterpieces of Western Europe, is enthusiastic in his
praises of these folk-tales. He compares the treasures of Turkish
folk-lore to precious stones lying neglected in the byways of philology
for want of gleaners to gather them in, and he warns the student of
ethnology that when once the threatened railroad actually invades the
classic land of Anatolia, these naively poetical myths and legends will,
infallibly, be the first victims of Western civilization.
The almost unique collection of Dr. Ignatius Kunos may therefore be
regarded as a brand snatched from the burning; in any case it is an
important “find,” as well for the scientific folk-lorist as for the
lover of fairy-tales pure and simple. That these stories should contain
anything absolutely new is, indeed, too much to expect. Professor
Vámbery himself traces affinities between many of them and other purely
Oriental stories which form the bases of _The Arabian Nights_. A few
Slavonic and Scandinavian elements are also plainly distinguishable,
such, for instance, as that mysterious fowl, the Emerald Anka, obviously
no very distant relative of the Bird Mogol and the Bird Zhar, which
figure in my _Russian Fairy Tales_ and _Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk
Tales_ respectively, while the story of the _Enchanted Turban_ is, in
some particulars, curiously like Hans Andersen’s story, _The Travelling
Companion_. Nevertheless, these tales have a character peculiarly their
own; above all, they are remarkable for a vivid imaginativeness, a
gorgeous play of fancy, compared with which the imagery of the most
popular fairy tales of the West seem almost prosaically jejune, and if,
as Professor Vámbery suggests, these _Népmések_ provide the sort of
entertainment which beguiles the leisure of the Turkish ladies while
they sip their mocha and whiff their fragrant narghilies, we cannot but
admire the poetical taste and nice discrimination, in this respect, of
the harem and the seraglio.
I have Englished these tales from the first Hungarian edition, so that
this version is, perhaps, open to the objection of being a translation
of a translation. Inasmuch, however, as I have followed my text very
closely, and having regard to the fact that Hungarian and Turkish are
closely cognate dialects (in point of grammatical construction they are
practically identical), I do not think they will be found to have lost
so very much of their original fragrance and flavour.
I have supplemented these purely Turkish with four semi-Turkish tales
translated from the original Roumanian of Ispirescu’s _Legende sau
Basmele Românilorŭ_. Bucharest, 1892. This collection, which I commend
to the notice of the Folk-Lore Society, is very curious and original,
abounding as it does in extraordinarily bizarre and beautiful variants
of the best-known fairy tales, a very natural result of the peculiar
combination in Roumanian of such heterogeneous elements as Romance,
Slavonic, Magyar, and Turkish.
R. NISBET BAIN.
_July 1896_
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE STAG-PRINCE 1
THE THREE ORANGE-PERIS 12
THE ROSE-BEAUTY 30
MAD MEHMED 42
THE GOLDEN-HAIRED CHILDREN 53
THE HORSE-DEVIL AND THE WITCH 74
THE CINDER-YOUTH 84
THE PIECE OF LIVER 97
THE MAGIC TURBAN, THE MAGIC WHIP, AND THE MAGIC CARPET 102
THE WIND-DEMON 112
THE CROW-PERI 134
THE FORTY PRINCES AND THE SEVEN-HEADED DRAGON 143
THE WORLD’S MOST BEAUTEOUS DAMSEL 154
THE PADISHAH OF THE FORTY PERIS 166
THE SERPENT-PERI AND THE MAGIC MIRROR 176
STONE-PATIENCE AND KNIFE-PATIENCE 188
THE GHOST OF THE SPRING AND THE SHREW 196
ROUMANIAN FAIRY TALES
PAGE
THE STORY OF THE HALF-MAN-RIDING-ON-THE-WORSE-HALF-OF-A-LAME-HORSE 209
THE ENCHANTED HOG 222
BOY-BEAUTIFUL, THE GOLDEN APPLES, AND THE WERE-WOLF 244
YOUTH WITHOUT AGE, AND LIFE WITHOUT DEATH 260
TURKISH FAIRY TALES
THE STAG-PRINCE
Once upon a time, when the servants of Allah were many, there lived a
Padishah[2] who had one son and one daughter. The Padishah grew old, his
time came, and he died; his son ruled in his stead, and he had not ruled
very long before he had squandered away his whole inheritance.
One day he said to his sister: “Little sister! all our money is spent.
If people were to hear that we had nothing left they would drive us out
of doors, and we should never be able to look our fellow-men in the face
again. Far better, therefore, if we depart and take up our abode
elsewhere.” So they tied together the little they had left, and then the
brother and sister quitted their father’s palace in the night-time, and
wandered forth into the wide world.
They went on and on till they came to a vast sandy desert, where they
were like to have fallen to the ground for the burning heat. The youth
felt that he could go not a step further, when he saw on the ground a
little puddle of water. “Little sister!” said he, “I will not go a step
further till I have drunk this water.”
“Nay, dear brother!” replied the girl, “who can tell whether it be
really water or filth? If we have held up so long, surely we can hold up
a little longer. Water we are bound to find soon.”
“I tell thee,” replied her brother, “that I’ll not go another step
further till I have drunk up this puddle, though I die for it,”--and
with that he knelt down, sucked up every drop of the dirty water, and
instantly became a stag.
The little sister wept bitterly at this mischance; but there was nothing
for it but to go on as they were. They went on and on, up hill and down
dale, right across the sandy waste till they came to a full spring
beneath a large tree, and there they sat them down and rested. “Hearken
now, little sister!” said the stag, “thou must mount up into that tree,
while I go to see if I can find something to eat.” So the girl climbed
up into the tree, and the stag went about his business, ran up hill and
down dale, caught a hare, brought it back, and he and his sister ate it
together, and so they lived from day to day and from week to week.
Now the horses of the Padishah of that country were wont to be watered
at the spring beneath the large tree. One evening the horsemen led their
horses up to it as usual, but, just as they were on the point of
drinking, they caught sight of the reflection of the damsel in the
watery mirror and reared back. The horsemen fancied that perhaps the
water was not quite pure, so they drew off the trough and filled it
afresh, but again the horses reared backwards and would not drink of it.
The horsemen knew not what to make of it, so they went and told the
Padishah.
“Perchance the water is muddy,” said the Padishah.
“Nay,” replied the horsemen, “we emptied the trough once and filled it
full again with fresh water, and yet the horses would not drink of it.”
“Go again,” said their master, “and look well about you; perchance there
is some one near the spring of whom they are afraid.”
The horsemen returned, and, looking well about the spring, cast their
eyes at last upon the large tree, on the top of which they perceived the
damsel. They immediately went back and told the Padishah. The Padishah
took the trouble to go and look for himself, and raising his eyes
perceived in the tree a damsel as lovely as the moon when she is
fourteen days old, so that he absolutely could not take his eyes off
her. “Art thou a spirit or a peri?”[3] said the Padishah to the damsel.
“I am neither a spirit nor a peri, but a mortal as thou art,” replied
the damsel.
In vain the Padishah begged her to come down from the tree. In vain he
implored her, nothing he could say would make her come down. Then the
Padishah waxed wroth. He commanded them to cut down the tree. The men
brought their axes and fell a-hewing at the tree. They hewed away at the
vast tree, they hewed and hewed until only a little strip of solid trunk
remained to be cut through; but, meanwhile, eventide had drawn nigh and
it began to grow dark, so they left off their work, which they purposed
to finish next day.
Scarcely had they departed when the stag came running out of the forest,
looked at the tree, and asked the little sister what had happened. The
girl told him that she would not descend from the tree, so they had
tried to cut it down. “Thou didst well,” replied the stag, “and take
care thou dost not come down in future, whatever they may say.” With
that he went to the tree, licked it with his tongue, and immediately the
tree grew bigger round the hewed trunk than before.
[Illustration: The Damsel and the Old Witch.--p. 5.]
The next day, when the stag had again departed about his business, the
Padishah’s men came and saw that the tree was larger and harder round
the trunk than ever. Again they set to work hewing at the tree, and
hewed and hewed till they had cut half through it; but by that time
evening fell upon them again, and again they put off the rest of the
work till the morrow and went home.
But all their labour was lost, for the stag came again, licked the gap
in the tree with his tongue, and immediately it grew thicker and harder
than ever.
Early next morning, when the stag had only just departed, the Padishah
and his wood-cutters again came to the tree, and when they saw that the
trunk of the tree had filled up again larger and firmer than ever, they
determined to try some other means. So they went home again and sent for
a famous old witch, told her of the damsel in the tree, and promised her
a rich reward if she would, by subtlety, make the damsel come down. The
old witch willingly took the matter in hand, and bringing with her an
iron tripod, a cauldron, and sundry raw meats, placed them by the side
of the spring. She placed the tripod on the ground, and the kettle on
the top of it but upside down, drew water from the spring and poured it
not into the kettle, but on the ground beside it, and with that she kept
her eyes closed as if she were blind.
The damsel fancied she really was blind, and called to her from the
tree. “Nay but, my dear elder sister! thou hast placed the kettle on the
tripod upside down, and art pouring all the water on the ground.”
“Oh, my sweet little damsel!” cried the old woman, “that is because I
have no eyes to see with. I have brought some dirty linen with me, and
if thou dost love Allah, thou wilt come down and put the kettle right,
and help me to wash the things.” Then the damsel thought of the words of
the little stag, and she did _not_ come down.
The next day the old witch came again, stumbled about the tree, laid a
fire, and brought forth a heap of meal in order to sift it, but instead
of meal she put ashes into the sieve. “Poor silly old granny!” cried the
damsel compassionately, and then she called down from the tree to the
old woman, and told her that she was sifting ashes instead of meal. “Oh,
my dear damsel!” cried the old woman, weeping, “I am blind, I cannot
see. Come down and help me a little in my affliction.” Now the little
stag had strictly charged her that very morning not to come down from
the tree whatever might be said to her, and she obeyed the words of her
brother.
On the third day the old witch again came beneath the tree. This time
she brought a sheep with her, and brought out a knife to flay it with,
and began to jag and skin it from behind instead of cutting its throat.
The poor little sheep bleated piteously, and the damsel in the tree,
unable to endure the sight of the beast’s sufferings, came down from the
tree to put the poor thing out of its misery. Then the Padishah, who was
concealed close to the tree, rushed out and carried the damsel off to
his palace.
The damsel pleased the Padishah so mightily that he wanted to be married
to her without more ado; but the damsel would not consent till they had
brought her her brother, the little stag: until she saw him, she said,
she could have not a moment’s rest. Then the Padishah sent men out into
the forest, who caught the stag and brought him to his sister. After
that he never left his sister’s side. They lay down together, and
together they rose up. Even when the Padishah and the damsel were
wedded, the little stag was never far away from them, and in the evening
when he found out where they were, he would softly stroke each of them
all over with one of his front feet before going to sleep beside them,
and say--
“This little foot is for my sister,
That little foot is for my brother.”
But time, as men count it, passes quickly to its fulfilment, more
quickly still passes the time of fairy tales, but quickest of all flies
the time of true love. Yet our little people would have lived on happily
if there had not been a black female slave in the palace. Jealousy
devoured her at the thought that the Padishah had taken to his bosom the
ragged damsel from the tree-top rather than herself, and she watched for
an opportunity of revenge.
Now there was a beautiful garden in the palace, with a fountain in the
midst of it, and there the Sultan’s damsel used to walk about. One day,
with a golden saucer in her hand and a silver sandal on her foot, she
went towards the great fountain, and the black slave followed after her
and pushed her in. There was a big fish in the basin, and it immediately
swallowed up the Sultan’s pet damsel. Then the black slave returned to
the palace, put on the golden raiment of the Sultan’s damsel, and sat
down in her place.
In the evening the Padishah came and asked the damsel what she had done
to her face that it was so much altered. “I have walked too much in the
garden, and so the sun has tanned my face,” replied the girl. The
Padishah believed her and sat down beside her, but the little stag came
also, and when he began to stroke them both down with his fore-foot he
recognized the slave-girl as he said--
“This little foot is for my sister,
And this little foot is for my brother.”
Then it became the one wish of the slave-girl’s heart to be rid of the
little stag as quickly as possible, lest it should betray her.
So after a little thought she made herself sick, and sent for the
doctors, and gave them much money to say to the Padishah that the only
thing that could save her was the heart of the little stag to eat. So
the doctors went and told the Padishah that the sick woman must swallow
the heart of the little stag, or there was no hope for her. Then the
Padishah went to the slave-girl whom he fancied to be his pet damsel,
and asked her if it did not go against her to eat the heart of her own
brother?
“What can I do?” sighed the impostor; “if I die, what will become of my
poor little pet? If he be cut up I shall live, while he will be spared
the torments of those poor beasts that grow old and sick.” Then the
Padishah gave orders that a butcher’s knife should be whetted, and a
fire lighted, and a cauldron of water put over the fire.
The poor little stag perceived all the bustling about and ran down into
the garden to the fountain, and called out three times to his sister--
“The knife is on the stone,
The water’s on the boil,
Haste, little sister, hasten!”
And thrice she answered back to him from the fish’s maw--
“Here am I in the fish’s belly,
In my hand a golden saucer,
On my foot a silver sandal,
In my arms a little Padishah!”
For the Sultan’s pet damsel had brought forth a little son in the fish’s
belly.
Now the Padishah was intent on catching the little stag when it ran down
into the garden to the fountain, and, coming up softly behind it, heard
every word of what the brother and sister were saying to each other. He
quietly ordered all the water to be drained off the basin of the
fountain, drew up the fish, cut open its belly, and what do you think he
saw? In the belly of the fish was his wife, with a golden saucer in her
hand, and a silver sandal on her foot, and a little son in her arms.
Then the Padishah embraced his wife, and kissed his son, and brought
them both to the palace, and heard the tale of it all to the very end.
But the little stag found something in the fish’s blood, and when he had
swallowed it, he became a man again. Then he rushed to his sister, and
they embraced and wept with joy over each other’s happiness.
But the Padishah sent for his black slave-girl, and asked her which she
would like the best--four good steeds or four good swords. The
slave-girl replied: “Let the swords be for the throats of my enemies,
but give me the four steeds that I may take my pleasure on horseback.”
Then they tied the slave-girl to the tails of four good steeds, and sent
her out for a ride; and the four steeds tore the black girl into little
bits and scattered them abroad.
But the Padishah and his wife lived happily together, and the king’s son
who had been a stag abode with them; and they gave a great banquet,
which lasted four days and four nights; and they attained their desires,
and may ye, O my readers, attain your desires likewise.
THE THREE ORANGE-PERIS
In the olden times, when there were sieves in straws and lies in
everything, in the olden times when there was abundance, and men ate and
drank the whole day and yet lay down hungry, in those olden, olden times
there was once a Padishah whose days were joyless, for he had never a
son to bless himself with.
One day he was in the path of pleasure with his Vizier, and when they
had drunk their coffee and smoked their chibooks, they went out for a
walk, and went on and on till they came to a great valley. Here they sat
down to rest a while, and as they were looking about them to the right
hand and to the left, the valley was suddenly shaken as if by an
earthquake, a whip cracked, and a dervish, a green-robed,
yellow-slippered, white-bearded dervish, suddenly stood before them. The
Padishah and the Vizier were so frightened that they dared not budge;
but when the dervish approached them and addressed them with the words,
“Selamun aleykyum,”[4] they took heart a bit, and replied courteously,
“Ve aleykyum selam.”[5]
“What is thy errand here, my lord Padishah?” asked the dervish.
“If thou dost know that I am a Padishah, thou dost also know my errand,”
replied the Padishah.
Then the dervish took from his bosom an apple, gave it to the Padishah,
and said these words: “Give half of this to thy Sultana, and eat the
other half thyself,” and with these words he disappeared.
Then the Padishah went home, gave half the apple to his consort, and ate
the other half himself, and in exactly nine months and ten days there
was a little prince in the harem. The Padishah was beside himself for
joy. He scattered sequins among the poor, restored to freedom his
slaves, and the banquet he gave to his friends had neither beginning nor
end.
Swiftly flies the time in fairy tales, and the child had reached his
fourteenth summer while yet they fondled him. One day he said to his
father: “My lord father Padishah, make me now a little marble palace,
and let there be two springs under it, and let one of them run with
honey, and the other with butter!” Dearly did the Padishah love his
little son, because he was his only child, so he made him the marble
palace with the springs inside it as his son desired. There then sat the
King’s son in the marble palace, and while he was looking at the springs
that bubbled forth both butter and honey, he saw an old woman with a
pitcher in her hand, and she would fain have filled it from the spring.
Then the King’s son caught up a stone and flung it at the old woman’s
pitcher, and broke it into pieces. The old woman said not a word, but
she went away.
But the next day she was there again with her pitcher, and again she
made as if she would fill it, and a second time the King’s son cast a
stone at her and broke her pitcher. The old woman went away without
speaking a word. She came on the third day also, and it fared with her
pitcher then as on the first two days. Then the old woman spoke. “Oh,
youth!” cried she, “’tis the will of Allah that thou shouldst fall in
love with the three Orange-peris,” and with that she quitted him.
From thenceforth the heart of the King’s son was consumed by a hidden
fire. He began to grow pale and wither away. When the Padishah saw that
his son was ill, he sent for the wise men and the leeches, but they
could find no remedy for the disease. One day the King’s son said to his
father: “Oh, my dear little daddy Shah! these wise men of thine cannot
cure me of my disease, and all their labours are in vain. I have fallen
in love with the three Oranges, and never shall I be better till I find
them.”
“Oh, my dear little son!” groaned the Padishah, “thou art all that I
have in the wide world: if thou dost leave me, in whom can I rejoice?”
Then the King’s son slowly withered away, and his days were as a heavy
sleep; so his father saw that it would be better to let him go forth on
his way and find, if so be he might, the three Oranges that were as the
balsam of his soul. “Perchance too he may return again,” thought the
Padishah.
So the King’s son arose one day and took with him things that were light
to carry, but heavy in the scales of value, and pursued his way over
mountains and valleys, rising up and lying down again for many days. At
last in the midst of a vast plain, in front of the high-road, he came
upon her Satanic Majesty the Mother of Devils, as huge as a minaret. One
of her legs was on one mountain, and the other leg on another mountain;
she was chewing gum (her mouth was full of it) so that you could hear
her half-an-hour’s journey off; her breath was a hurricane, and her arms
were yards and yards long.
“Good-day, little mother!” cried the youth, and he embraced the broad
waist of the Mother of Devils. “Good-day, little sonny!” she replied.
“If thou hadst not spoken to me so politely, I should have gobbled thee
up.” Then she asked him whence he came and whither he was going.
“Alas! dear little mother,” sighed the youth, “such a terrible
misfortune has befallen me that I can neither tell thee nor answer thy
question.”
“Nay, come, out with it, my son,” urged the Mother of Devils.
“Well then, my sweet little mother,” cried the youth, and he sighed
worse than before, “I have fallen violently in love with the three
Oranges. If only I might find my way thither!”
“Hush!” cried the Mother of Devils, “it is not lawful to even think of
that name, much less pronounce it. I and my sons are its guardians, yet
even we don’t know the way to it. Forty sons have I, and they go up and
down the earth more than I do, perchance they may tell thee something of
the matter.” So when it began to grow dusk towards evening, ere yet the
devil-sons had come home, the old woman gave the King’s son a tap, and
turned him into a pitcher of water. And she did it not a moment too
soon, for immediately afterwards the forty sons of the Mother of Devils
knocked at the door and cried: “Mother, we smell man’s flesh!”
“Nonsense!” cried the Mother of Devils. “What, I should like to know,
have the sons of men to do here? It seems to me you had better all clean
your teeth.” So she gave the forty sons forty wooden stakes to clean
their teeth with, and out of one’s tooth fell an arm, and out of
another’s a thigh, and out of another’s an arm, till they had all
cleaned their teeth. Then they sat them down to eat and drink, and in
the middle of the meal their mother said to them: “If now ye had a man
for your brother, what would ye do with him?”
“Do,” they replied, “why love him like a brother, of course!”
Then the Mother of Devils tapped the water-jar, and the King’s son stood
there again. “Here is your brother!” cried she to her forty sons.
The devils thanked the King’s son for his company with great joy,
invited their new brother to sit down, and asked their mother why she
had not told them about him before, as then they might all have eaten
their meal together.
“Nay but, my sons,” cried she, “he does not live on the same sort of
meat as ye; fowls, mutton, and such-like is what _he_ feeds on.”
At this one of them jumped up, went out, fetched a sheep, slew it, and
laid it before the new brother.
“Oh, what a child thou art!” cried the Mother of Devils. “Dost thou not
know that thou must first cook it for him?”
Then they skinned the sheep, made a fire, roasted it, and placed it
before him. The King’s son ate a piece, and after satisfying his hunger,
left the rest of it. “Why, that’s nothing!” cried the devils, and they
urged him again and again to eat more. “Nay, my sons,” cried their
mother, “men never eat more than that.”
“Let us see then what this sheep-meat is like,” said one of the forty
brothers. So they fell upon it and devoured the whole lot in a couple of
mouthfuls.
Now when they all rose up early in the morning, the Mother of Devils
said to her sons: “Our new brother hath a great trouble.”--“What is it?”
cried they, “for we would help him.”
“He has fallen in love with the three Oranges!”--“Well,” replied the
devils, “we know not the place of the three Oranges ourselves, but
perchance our aunt may know.”
“Then lead this youth to her,” said their mother; “tell her that he is
my son and worthy of all honour, let her also receive him as a son and
ease him of his trouble.” Then the devils took the youth to their aunt,
and told her on what errand he had come.
Now this Aunt of the Devils had sixty sons, and as she did not know the
place of the three Oranges, she had to wait till they came home. But
lest any harm should happen to this her new son, she gave him a tap and
turned him into a piece of crockery.
“We smell man’s flesh, mother,” cried the devils, as they crossed the
threshold.
“Perchance ye have eaten man’s flesh, and the remains thereof are still
within your teeth,” said their mother. Then she gave them great logs of
wood that they might pick their teeth clean, and so be able to swallow
down something else. But in the midst of the meal the woman gave the
piece of crockery a tap, and when the sixty devils saw their little
human brother, they rejoiced at the sight, made him sit down at table,
and bade him fall to if there was anything there he took a fancy to. “My
sons,” said the Mother of the Devils to her sixty sons when they all
rose up early on the morrow, “this lad here has fallen in love with the
three Oranges, cannot you show him the way thither?”
“We know not the way,” replied the devils; “but perchance our old
great-aunt may know something about it.”
“Then take the youth thither,” said their mother, “and bid her hold him
in high honour. He is my son, let him be hers also and help him out of
his distress.” Then they took him off to their great-aunt, and told her
the whole business. “Alas! I do not know, my sons!” said the old, old
great-aunt; “but if you wait till the evening, when my ninety sons come
home, I will ask them.”
Then the sixty devils departed and left the King’s son there, and when
it grew dusk the Mother of the Devils gave the youth a tap, turned him
into a broom, and placed him in the doorway. Shortly afterwards the
ninety devils came home, and they also smelt the smell of man, and took
the pieces of man’s flesh out of their teeth. In the middle of their
meal their mother asked them how they would treat a human brother if
they had one. When they had sworn upon eggs that they would not hurt so
much as his little finger, their mother gave the broom a tap, and the
King’s son stood before them.
The devil brothers entreated him courteously, inquired after his health,
and served him so heartily with eatables that they scarcely gave him
time to breathe. In the midst of the meal their mother asked them
whether they knew where the three Oranges were, for their new brother
had fallen in love with them. Then the least of the ninety devils leaped
up with a shout of joy, and said that he knew.
“Then if thou knowest,” said his mother, “see that thou take this son of
ours thither, that he may satisfy his heart’s desire.”
On arising next morning, the devil-son took the King’s son with him, and
the pair of them went merrily along the road together. They went on, and
on, and on, and at last the little devil said these words: “My brother,
we shall come presently to a large garden, and in the fountain thereof
are the three. When I say to thee: ‘Shut thine eye, open thine eye!’ lay
hold of what thou shalt see.”
They went on a little way further till they came to the garden, and the
moment the devil saw the fountain he said to the King’s son: “Shut thine
eye and open thine eye!” He did so, and saw the three Oranges bobbing up
and down on the surface of the water where it came bubbling out of the
spring, and he snatched up one of them and popped it in his pocket.
Again the devil called to him: “Open thine eye and shut thine eye!” He
did so, and snatched up the second orange, and so with the third also in
the same way. “Now take care,” said the devil, “that thou dost not cut
open these oranges in any place where there is no water, or it will go
ill with thee.” The King’s son promised, and so they parted, one went to
the right, and the other to the left.
The King’s son went on, and on, and on. He went a long way, and he went
a short way, he went across mountains and through valleys. At last he
came to a sandy desert, and there he bethought him of the oranges, and
drawing one out, he cut it open. Scarcely had he cut into it when a
damsel, lovely as a Peri, popped out of it before him; the moon when it
is fourteen days old is not more dazzling. “For Allah’s sake, give me a
drop of water!” cried the damsel, and inasmuch as there was no trace of
water anywhere, she vanished from the face of the earth. The King’s son
grieved right sorely, but there was no help for it, the thing was done.
Again he went on his way, and when he had gone a little further he
thought to himself, “I may as well cut open one more orange.” So he drew
out the second orange, and scarcely had he cut into it than there popped
down before him a still more lovely damsel, who begged piteously for
water, but as the King’s son had none to give her, she also vanished.
“Well, I’ll take better care of the third,” cried he, and continued his
journey. He went on and on till he came to a large spring, drank out of
it, and then thought to himself: “Well, now I’ll cut open the third
orange also.” He drew it out and cut it, and immediately a damsel even
lovelier than the other two stood before him. As soon as she called for
water, he led her to the spring and gave her to drink, and the damsel
did not disappear, but remained there as large as life.
Mother-naked was the damsel, and as he could not take her to town like
that, he bade her climb up a large tree that stood beside the spring,
while he went into the town to buy her raiment and a carriage.
While the King’s son had gone away, a negro servant came to the spring
to draw water, and saw the reflection of the damsel in the watery
mirror. “Why, thou art something like a damsel,” said she to herself,
“and ever so much lovelier than thy mistress; so she ought to fetch
water for me, not I for her.” With that she broke the pitcher in two,
went home, and when her mistress asked where the pitcher of water was,
she replied: “I am much more beautiful than thou, so thou must fetch
water for me, not I for thee.” Her mistress took up a mirror, held it
before her, and said: “Methinks thou must have taken leave of thy
senses; look at this mirror!” The Moor looked into the mirror, and saw
that she was as coal-black as ever. Without another word she took up the
pitcher, went again to the spring, and seeing the damsel’s face in the
mirror, again fancied that it was hers.
“I’m right, after all,” she cried; “I’m ever so much more beautiful than
my mistress.” So she broke the pitcher to pieces again, and went home.
Again her mistress asked her why she had not drawn water. “Because I am
ever so much more beautiful than thou, so thou must draw water for me,”
replied she.
“Thou art downright crazy,” replied her mistress, drew out a mirror, and
showed it to her; and when the Moor-girl saw her face in it, she took up
another pitcher and went to the fountain for the third time. The
damsel’s face again appeared in the water, but just as she was about to
break the pitcher again, the damsel called to her from the tree: “Break
not thy pitchers, ’tis my face thou dost see in the water, and thou wilt
see thine own there also.”
The Moor-girl looked up, and when she saw the wondrously beautiful shape
of the damsel in the tree, she climbed up beside her and spake coaxing
words to her: “Oh, my little golden damsel, thou wilt get the cramp from
crouching there so long; come, rest thy head!” And with that she laid
the damsel’s head on her breast, felt in her bosom, drew out a needle,
pricked the damsel with it in the skull, and in an instant the
Orange-Damsel was changed into a bird, and pr-r-r-r-r! she was gone,
leaving the Moor all alone in the tree.
Now when the King’s son came back with his fine coach and beautiful
raiment, looked up into the tree, and saw the black face, he asked the
girl what had happened to her. “A nice question!” replied the Moor-girl.
“Why, thou didst leave me here all day, and wentest away, so of course
the sun has tanned me black.” What could the poor King’s son do? He made
the black damsel sit in the coach, and took her straight home to his
father’s house.
In the palace of the Padishah they were all waiting, full of eagerness,
to behold the Peri-Bride, and when they saw the Moorish damsel they
said to the King’s son: “However couldst thou lose thy heart to a black
maid?”
“She is not a black maid,” said the King’s son. “I left her at the top
of a tree, and she was blackened there by the rays of the sun. If only
you let her rest a bit she’ll soon grow white again.” And with that he
led her into her chamber, and waited for her to grow white again.
Now there was a beautiful garden in the palace of the King’s son, and
one day the Orange-Bird came flying on to a tree there, and called down
to the gardener.
“What dost thou want with me?” asked the gardener.
“What is the King’s son doing?” inquired the bird.
“He is doing no harm that I know of,” replied the gardener.
“And what about his black bride?”
“Oh, she’s there too, sitting with him as usual.”
Then the little bird sang these words:
“She may sit by his side,
But she shall not abide;
For all her fair showing
The thorns are a-growing.
As I hop on this tree,
It will wither ’neath me.”
And with that it flew away.
The next day it came again, and inquired once more about the King’s son
and his black consort, and repeated what it said before. The third day
it did in like manner, and as many trees as it hopped upon withered
right away beneath it.
One day the King’s son felt weary of his black bride, so he went out
into the garden for a walk. Then his eye fell on the withered trees, and
he called the gardener and said to him: “What is this, gardener? Why
dost thou not take better care of thy trees? Dost thou not see that they
are all withering away?” Then the gardener replied that it was of but
little use for him to take care of the trees, for a few days ago a
little bird had been there, and asked what the King’s son and his black
consort were doing, and had said that though she might be sitting there,
she should not sit for ever, but that thorns would grow, and every tree
it lit upon should wither.
The Bang’s son commanded the gardener to smear the trees with bird-lime,
and if the bird then lit upon it, to bring it to him. So the gardener
smeared the trees with bird-lime, and when the bird came there next day
he caught it, and brought it to the King’s son, who put it in a cage.
Now no sooner did the black woman look upon the bird than she knew at
once that it was the damsel. So she pretended to be very ill, sent for
the chief medicine-man, and by dint of rich gifts persuaded him to say
to the King’s son that his consort would never get well unless he fed
her with such and such birds.
The King’s son saw that his consort was very sick, he sent for the
doctor, went with him to see the sick woman, and asked him how she was
to be cured. The doctor said she could only be cured if they gave her
such and such birds to eat. “Why, only this very day have I caught one
of such birds,” said the King’s son; and they brought the bird, killed
it, and fed the sick lady with the flesh thereof. In an instant the
black damsel arose from her bed. But one of the bird’s dazzling feathers
fell accidentally to the ground and slipped between the planks, so that
nobody noticed it.
Time went on, and the King’s son was still waiting and waiting for his
consort to turn white. Now there was an old woman in the palace who used
to teach the dwellers in the harem to read and write. One day as she was
going down-stairs she saw something gleaming between the planks of the
floor, and going towards it, perceived that it was a bird’s feather that
sparkled like a diamond. She took it home and thrust it behind a rafter.
The next day she went to the palace, and while she was away the bird’s
feather leaped down from the rafter, shivered a little, and the next
moment turned into a most lovely damsel. She put the room tidy, cooked
the meal, set everything in order, and then leaped back upon the rafter
and became a feather again. When the old woman came home she was amazed
at what she saw. She thought: “Somebody must have done all this,” so she
went up and down, backwards and forwards through the house, but nobody
could she see.
Early next morning she again went to the palace, and the feather leaped
down again in like manner, and did all the household work. When the old
woman came home, she perceived the house all nice and clean, and
everything in order. “I really must find out the secret of this,”
thought she, so next morning she made as if she were going away as
usual, and left the door ajar, but went and hid herself in a corner. All
at once she perceived that there was a damsel in the room, who tidied
the room and cooked the meal, whereupon the old woman dashed out, seized
hold of her, and asked her who she was and whence she came. Then the
damsel told her her sad fate, and how she had been twice killed by the
black woman, and had come thither in the shape of a feather.
“Distress thyself no more, my lass,” said the old woman. “I’ll put thy
business to rights, and this very day, too.” And with that she went
straight to the King’s son and invited him to come and see her that
evening. The King’s son was now so sick unto death of his black bride
that he was glad of any excuse to escape from his own house, so the
evening found him punctually at the old woman’s. They sat down to
supper, and when the coffee followed the meats, the damsel entered with
the cups, and when the King’s son saw her he was like to have fainted.
“Nay, but, mother,” said the King’s son, when he had come to himself a
little, “who is that damsel?”
“Thy wife,” replied the old woman.
“How didst thou get that fair creature?” inquired the King’s son. “Wilt
thou not give her to me?”
“How can _I_ give her to thee, seeing that she was thine own once upon a
time,” said the old woman; and with that the old woman took the damsel
by the hand, led her to the King’s son, and laid her on his breast.
“Take better care of the Orange-Peri another time,” said she.
The King’s son now nearly fainted in real earnest, but it was from sheer
joy. He took the damsel to his palace, put to death the black
slave-girl, but held high festival with the Peri for forty days and
forty nights. So they had the desire of their hearts, and may Allah
satisfy your desires likewise.
THE ROSE-BEAUTY
Once upon a time in the old old days when straws were sieves, and the
camel a chapman, and the mouse a barber, and the cuckoo a tailor, and
the donkey ran errands, and the tortoise baked bread, and I was only
fifteen years old, but my father rocked my cradle, and there was a
miller in the land who had a black cat--in those olden times, I say,
there was a King who had three daughters, and the first daughter was
forty, and the second was thirty, and the third was twenty. One day the
youngest daughter wrote this letter to her father: “My lord father! my
eldest sister is forty and my second sister is thirty, and still thou
hast given neither of them a husband. I have no desire to grow grey in
waiting for a husband.”
The King read the letter, sent for his three daughters, and addressed
them in these words: “Look now! let each one of you shoot an arrow from
a bow and seek her sweetheart wherever her arrow falls!” So the three
damsels took their bows. The eldest damsel’s arrow fell into the palace
of the Vizier’s son, so the Vizier’s son took her to wife. The second
girl’s arrow flew into the palace of the Chief Mufti’s son, so they gave
her to him. The third damsel also fired her arrow, and lo! it stuck in
the hut of a poor young labourer. “That won’t do, that won’t do!” cried
they all. So she fired again, and again the arrow stuck in the hut. She
aimed a third time, and a third time the arrow stuck in the hut of the
poor young labourer. Then the King was wroth and cried to the damsel:
“Look now, thou slut! thou hast got thy deserts. Thy sisters waited
patiently, and therefore they have got their hearts’ desires. Thou wast
the youngest of all, yet didst thou write me that saucy letter, hence
thy punishment. Out of my sight, thou slave-girl, to this husband of
thine, and thou shalt have nought but what he can give thee!” So the
poor damsel departed to the hut of the labourer, and they gave her to
him to wife.
They lived together for a time, and on the tenth day of the ninth month
the time came that she should bear a child, and her husband, the
labourer, hastened away for the midwife. While the husband was thus away
his wife had neither a bed to lie down upon nor a fire to warm herself
by, though grinding winter was upon them. All at once the walls of the
poor hut opened hither and thither, and three beautiful damsels of the
Peri race stepped into it. One stood at the damsel’s head, another at
her feet, the third by her side, and they all seemed to know their
business well. In a moment everything in the poor hut was in order, the
princess lay on a beautiful soft couch, and before she could blink her
eyes a pretty little new-born baby girl was lying by her side. When
everything was finished the three Peris set about going, but first of
all they approached the bed one by one, and the first said:
“Rosa be thy damsel’s name,
And she shall weep not tears but pearls!”
The second Peri approached the bed and said:
“Rosa be thy damsel’s name,
The rose shall blossom when she smiles!”
And the third Peri wound up with these words:
“Rosa be thy damsel’s name,
Sweet verdure in her footsteps spring!”
whereupon they all three disappeared.
Now all this time the husband was seeking a midwife, but could find one
nowhere. What could he do but go home? But when he got back he was
amazed to find everything in the poor hut in beautiful order, and his
wife lying on a splendid bed. Then she told him the story of the three
Peris, and there was no more spirit left in him, so astounded was he.
But the little girl grew more and more lovely from hour to day, and from
day to week, so that there was not another like her in the whole world.
Whosoever looked upon her lost his heart at once, and pearls fell from
her eyes when she wept, roses burst into bloom when she smiled, and a
bright riband of fresh green verdure followed her footsteps. Whosoever
saw her had no more spirit left in him, and the fame of lovely Rosa went
from mouth to mouth.
At last the King of that land also heard of the damsel, and instantly
made up his mind that she and nobody else should be his son’s consort.
So he sent for his son, and told him that there was a damsel in the town
of so rare a beauty that pearls fell from her eyes when she wept, roses
burst into bloom when she smiled, and the earth grew fresh and green
beneath her footsteps, and with that he bade him up and woo her.
Now the Peris had for a long time shown the King’s son the beautiful
Rose-damsel in his dreams, and the sweet fire of love already burned
within him; but he was ashamed to let his father see this, so he hung
back a little. At this his father became more and more pressing, bade
him go and woo her at once, and commanded the chief dame of the palace
to accompany him to the hut of the labourer.
They entered the hut, said on what errand they came, and claimed the
damsel for the King’s son in the name of Allah. The poor folks rejoiced
at their good luck, promised the girl, and began to make ready.
Now this palace dame’s daughter was also a beauty, and not unlike Rosa.
Terribly distressed was the dame that the King’s son should take to wife
a poor labourer’s daughter, instead of her own child; so she made up her
mind to deceive them and put her own daughter in Rosa’s place. So on the
day of the banquet she made the poor girl eat many salted meats, and
then brought a pitcher of water and a large basket, got into the bridal
coach with Rosa and her own daughter, and set out for the palace. As
they were on the road (and a very long time they were about it) the
damsel grew thirsty and asked the palace dame for some water. “Not till
thou hast given me one of thine eyes,” said the palace dame. What could
the poor damsel do?--she was dying with thirst. So she cut out one of
her eyes and gave it for a drink of water.
They went on and on, further and further, and the damsel again became
thirsty and asked for another drink of water. “Thou shalt have it if
thou give me thy other eye,” said the palace dame. And the poor damsel
was so tormented with thirst that she gave the other eye for a drink of
water.
The old dame took the two eyes, pitched the sightless damsel into the
big basket, and left her all alone on the top of a mountain. But the
beautiful bridal robe she put upon her own daughter, brought her to the
King’s son, and gave her to him with the words: “Behold thy wife!” So
they made a great banquet, and when they had brought the damsel to her
bridegroom and taken off her veil, he perceived that the damsel who now
stood before him was not the damsel of his dreams. As, however, she
resembled her a little he said nothing about it to anybody. So they lay
down to rest, and when they rose up again early next morning the King’s
son was quite undeceived, for the damsel of his dreams had wept pearls,
smiled roses, and sweet green herbs had grown up in her footsteps, but
this girl had neither roses nor pearls nor green herbs to show for
herself. The youth felt there was some trickery at work here. This was
not the girl he had meant to have. “How am I to find it all out?”
thought he to himself; but not a word did he say to any one.
While all these things were going on in the palace, poor Rosa was
weeping on the mountain top, and such showers of pearls fell from her by
dint of her sore weeping that there was scarce room to hold them all in
the big basket. Now a mud-carrier happened to be passing by who was
carting mud away, and hearing the weeping of the damsel was terribly
afraid, and cried: “Who art thou?--A Jinn or a Peri?”--“I am neither a
Jinn nor yet a Peri,” replied the damsel, “but the remains of a living
child of man.” Whereupon the mud-raker took courage, opened the basket,
and there a poor sightless damsel was sobbing, and her tears fell from
her in showers of pearls. So he took the damsel by the hand and led her
to his hut, and as the old man had nobody about him he adopted the
damsel as if she were his own child and took care of her. But the poor
girl did nothing but weep for her two eyes, and the old man had all he
could do to pick up the pearls, and whenever they were in want of money
he would take a pearl and sell it, and they lived on whatever he got for
it.
Thus time passed, and there was mirth in the palace, and misery in the
hut of the mud-raker. Now it chanced one day as fair Rosa was sitting in
the hut, that something made her smile, and immediately a rose bloomed.
Then the damsel said to her foster-father, the mud-raker: “Take this
rose, papa, and go with it in front of the palace of the King’s son, and
cry aloud that thou hast roses for sale that are not to be matched in
the wide world. But if the dame of the palace comes out, see that thou
dost not give her the rose for money, but say that thou wilt sell it for
a human eye.”
So the man took the rose and stood in front of the palace, and began to
cry aloud: “A rose for sale, a rose for sale, the like of which is
nowhere to be found.” Now it was not the season for roses, so when the
dame of the palace heard the man crying a rose for sale, she thought to
herself: “I’ll put it in my daughter’s hair, and thus the King’s son
will think that she is his true bride.” So she called the poor man to
her, and asked him what he would sell the rose for? “For nothing,”
replied the man, “for no money told down, but I’ll give it thee for a
human eye.” Then the dame of the palace brought forth one of fair Rosa’s
eyes and gave it for the rose. Then she took it to her daughter, plaited
it in her hair, and when the King’s son saw the rose, he thought of the
Peri of his dreams, but could not understand whither she had gone.
Nevertheless he now fancied he was about to find out, so he said not a
word to any one.
Meanwhile, the old man went home with the eye and gave it to the damsel,
fair Rosa. Then she fitted it in its right place, sighed from her heart
in prayer to Allah, who can do all things; and behold! she could see
right well again with her one eye. The poor girl was so pleased that
she could not help smiling, and immediately another rose sprang forth.
This also she gave to her father that he might walk in front of the
palace and give it for another human eye. The old man took the rose, and
scarcely had he begun crying it before the palace when the old dame
again heard him. “He has just come at the nick of time,” thought she;
“the King’s son has begun to love my rose-bedizened daughter; if I can
only get this rose also, he will love her still better, and this
serving-wench will go out of his mind altogether.” So she called the
mud-raker to her and asked for the rose, but again he would not take
money for it, though he was willing to let her have it in exchange for a
human eye. Then the old woman gave him the second eye, and the old man
hastened home with it and gave it to the damsel. Rosa immediately put it
in its proper place, prayed to Allah, and was so rejoiced when her two
bright eyes sparkled with living light that she smiled all the day, and
roses bloomed on every side of her. Henceforth she was lovelier than
ever. Now one day beautiful Rosa went for a walk, and as she smiled
continually as she walked along, roses bloomed around her and the ground
grew fresh and green beneath her feet. The palace dame saw her and was
terrified. What will become of me, she thought, if the affair of this
damsel comes to be known? She knew where the poor mud-scraper lived, so
she went all alone to his dwelling, and terrified him by telling him
that he had an evil witch in his house. The poor man had never seen a
witch, so he was terrified to death, and asked the palace dame what he
had better do. “Find out, first of all, what her talisman is,” advised
the palace dame, “and then I’ll come and do the rest.”
So the first thing the old man did when the damsel came home was to ask
her how she, a mere child of man, had come to have such magic power. The
damsel, suspecting no ill, said that she had got her talisman from the
three Peris, and that pearls, roses, and fresh sweet verdure would
accompany her so long as her talisman was alive.
“What then is thy talisman?” asked the old man.
“A little deer on the hill-top;
If it die, I also dead drop,”
answered she.
The next day the palace dame came thither in the utmost misery, heard
all about it from the mud-scraper, and hastened home with great joy. She
told her daughter that on the top of the neighbouring hill was a little
deer which she should ask her husband to get for her. That very same day
the Sultana told her husband of the little deer on the top of the hill,
and begged and implored him to get her its heart to eat. And after not
many days the Prince’s men caught the little deer and killed it, and
took out its heart and gave it to the Sultana. At the same instant when
they killed the little fawn fair Rosa died. The mud-raker sorrowed over
her till he could sorrow no more, and then took and buried her.
Now in the heart of the little fawn there was a little red coral eye
which nobody took any notice of. When the Sultana ate the heart, the
little red coral eye fell out and rolled down the steps as if it wanted
to hide itself.
Time went on, and in not more than nine months and ten days the Prince’s
consort was brought to bed of a little daughter, who wept pearls when
she cried, dropt roses when she smiled, and sweet green herbs sprang up
in her footsteps.
When the Prince saw it he mused and mused over it, the little girl was
the very image of fair Rosa, and not a bit like the mother who had borne
her. So his sleep was no repose to him, till one night fair Rosa
appeared to him in his dreams and spoke these words to him: “Oh, my
prince! oh, my betrothed! my soul is beneath thy palace steps, my body
is in the tomb, thy little girl is my little girl, my talisman is the
little coral eye.”
The Prince had no sooner awakened than he went to the staircase and
searched about, and lo! there was the little coral eye. He picked it up,
took it into his chamber, and laid it on the table. Meanwhile, the
little girl entered the room, saw the red coral, and scarcely had she
laid hold of it than she vanished as if she had never been. The three
Peris had carried off the child and taken her to her mother’s tomb, and
scarcely had she placed the coral eye in the dead woman’s mouth than she
awoke up to a new life.
But the King’s son was not easy in his mind. He went to the cemetery,
had the tomb opened, and there in her coffin lay the Rose-beauty of his
dreams, with her little girl in her arms and the coral talisman in her
mouth. They arose from the tomb and embraced him, and pearls fell from
the eyes of both of them as they wept, and roses from their mouths as
they smiled, and sweet green herbs grew up in their footsteps.
The palace dame and her daughter paid for their crimes, but beautiful
Rosa and her father and her mother, the Sultan’s daughter, were all
re-united, and for forty days and forty nights they held high revel
amidst the beating of drums and the tinkling of cymbals.
MAD MEHMED
Once upon a time in the old old days when the camel was only a spy, when
toads rose in the air on wings, and I myself rode in the air while I
walked on the ground, and went up hill and down dale at the same time,
in those days, I say, there were two brothers who dwelt together.
All that they had inherited from their father were some oxen and other
beasts, and a sick mother. One day the spirit of division seized upon
the younger brother (he was half-witted besides, Allah help him!), and
he went to his brother and said: “Look now, brother! at these two
stables! One of them is as new as new can be, while the other is old and
rotten. Let us drive our cattle hither, and whatever goes into the new
stable shall be mine, and all the rest shall be thine.”
“Not so, Mehmed,” said the elder brother; “let whatever goes into the
old stable be thine!” To this also the half-crazy Mehmed agreed. That
same day they went and drove up their cattle, and all the cattle went
into the new stable except a helpless old ox that was so blind that it
mistook its way and went into the old stable instead. Mehmed said never
a word, but took the blind old ox into the fields to graze; every
morning early he drove it thither, and late every evening he drove it
back again. One day when he was on the road, the wind began to shake a
big wayside tree so violently that its vast branches whined and
whimpered again. “Hi! whimpering old dad!” said the fool to the tree,
“hast thou seen my elder brother?” But the tree, as if it didn’t hear,
only went on whining. The fool flew into such a rage at this that he
caught up his chopper and struck at the tree, when out of it gushed a
whole stream of golden sequins. At this the fool rallied what little
wits he had, hastened home, and asked his brother to lend him another
ox, as he wanted to plough with a pair. He found a cart also, and some
empty sacks. These he filled with earth, and set out forthwith for his
tree. There he emptied his sacks of their earth, filled them with
sequins instead, and when he returned home in the evening, his brother
well-nigh dropped down for amazement at the sight of the monstrous
treasure.
They could think of nothing now but dividing it, so the younger brother
went to their neighbour for a three-peck measure to measure it with.
Now the neighbour was curious to know what such clodpoles could have to
measure. So he took and smeared the bottom of the measure with tar, and,
sure enough, when the fool brought the measure back a short time
afterwards, a sequin was sticking to the bottom of it. The neighbour
immediately went and told it to another, who went and told it to a
third, and so it was not long before everybody knew all about it.
Now the wiser brother knew not what might happen to them now that they
had all this money, and he began to feel frightened. So he snatched up
his pick and shovel, dug a trench, buried the treasure, and made off as
fast as his heels could carry him. On the way it occurred to the wise
brother that he had done foolishly in not shutting the door of the hut
behind him, so he sent off his younger brother to do it for him. So the
fool went back to the house, and he thought to himself: “Well, since I
am here, I ought not to forget my old mother either.” So he filled a
huge cauldron with water, boiled it, and soused his old mother in it so
thoroughly that her poor old head was never likely to speak again. After
that he propped the old woman against the wall with the broom, tore the
door off its hinges, threw it over his shoulders, and went and rejoined
his brother in the wood.
The elder brother looked at the door, and listened to the sad case of
his poor old mother, but scold and chide his younger brother as he might
the latter grew more cock-a-hoop than ever--he fancied he had done such
a clever thing. He had brought the door away with him, he said, in order
that no one might get into the house. The wise brother would have given
anything to have got rid of the fool, and began turning over in his mind
how he might best manage it. He looked before him and behind him, he
looked down the high-road, and there were three horsemen galloping
along. The thought instantly occurred to the pair of them that these
horsemen were on their track, so they scrambled up a tree forthwith,
door and all. They were scarcely comfortably settled when the three
horsemen drove up beneath the tree and encamped there. The dusk of
evening had come on at the very nick of time, so that they could not see
the two brothers.
Now the two brothers would have done very well indeed up in the tree had
not one of them been a fool. Mehmed the fool began to practise
pleasantries which disturbed the repose of the horsemen beneath the
tree. Presently, however, came a crash--bang!--and down on the heads of
the three sleepers fell the great heavy door from the top of the tree.
“The end of the world has come, the end of the world has come!” cried
they, and they rushed off in such a fright that no doubt they haven’t
ceased running to this very day. This finished the business so far as
the elder brother was concerned. In the morning he arose and went on his
way, and left the foolish younger brother by himself.
Thus poor silly Mehmed had to go forth into the wide world alone. He
went on and on till he came to a village, by which time he was very
hungry. There he stood in the gate of a mosque, and got one or two
paras[6] from those who went in and out till he had enough to buy
himself something to eat. At that moment a fat little man came out of
the mosque, and casting his eyes on Mehmed, asked him if he would like
to enter his service.
“I don’t mind if I do,” replied Mehmed, “but only on condition that
neither of us is to get angry with the other for any cause whatever. If
thou art wroth with me I’ll kill thee, and if I get wroth with thee thou
mayest kill me also.” The fat man agreed to these terms, for there was a
great lack of servants in that village.
In order to make short work of the fat little man the fool began by at
once chasing all the hens and sheep off his master’s premises. “Art
angry, master?” he then inquired of his lord. His master was amazed, but
he only answered: “Angry? Not I! Why should I be?” At the same time he
entrusted nothing more to him, but let him sit in the house without
anything to do.
His master had a wife and child, and Mehmed had to look after them. He
liked to dandle the child up and down, but he knocked it about and hurt
it, so clumsy was he; so he soon had to leave that off. But the wife
began to be afraid that her turn would come next, sooner or later, so
she persuaded her husband to run away from the fool one night. Mehmed
overheard what they said, hid himself in their storebox, and when they
opened it in the next village out he popped.
After a while his master and his wife agreed together that they would go
and sleep at night on the shores of a lake. They took Mehmed with them,
and put his bed right on the water’s edge, that he might tumble in when
he went to sleep. However, the fool was not such a fool but that he made
his master’s wife jump into the lake instead of himself. “Art angry,
master?” cried he.--“Angry indeed! How can I help being angry when I see
my property wasted, and my wife and child killed, and myself a
beggar--and all through thee!” Then the fool seized his master, put him
in mind of their compact, and pitched him into the water.
Mehmed now found himself all alone, so he went forth into the wide world
once more. He went on and on, did nothing but drink sweet coffee, smoke
chibooks, look about over his shoulder, and walk leisurely along at his
ease. As he was thus knocking about, he chanced to light upon a
five-para piece, which he speedily changed for some lebleb,[7] which he
immediately fell to chewing, and, as he chewed, part of it fell into a
wayside spring, whereupon the fool began roaring loud enough to split
his throat: “Give me back my lebleb, give me back my lebleb!” At this
frightful bawling a Jinn popped up his head, and he was so big that his
upper lip swept the sky, while his lower lip hid the earth. “What dost
thou require?” asked the Jinn.--“I want my lebleb, I want my lebleb!”
cried Mehmed.
The Jinn ducked down into the spring, and when he came up again, he held
a little table in his hand. This little table he gave to the fool and
said: “Whenever thou art hungry thou hast only to say: ‘Little table,
give me to eat;’ and when thou hast eaten thy fill, say: ‘Little table,
I have now had enough.’”
So Mehmed took the table and went with it into a village, and when he
felt hungry he said: “Little table, give me to eat!” and immediately
there stood before him so many beautiful, nice dishes that he couldn’t
make up his mind which to begin with. “Well,” thought he, “I must let
the poor people of the village see this wonder also,” so he went and
invited them all to a great banquet.
The villagers came one after another, they looked to the right, they
looked to the left, but there was no sign of a fire, or any preparations
for a meal. “Nay, but he would needs make fools of us!” thought they.
But the young man brought out his table, set it in the midst, and cried:
“Little table, give me to eat!” and there before them stood all manner
of delicious meats and drinks, and so much thereof that when the guests
had stuffed themselves to the very throat, there was enough left over to
fill the servants. Then the villagers laid their heads together as to
how they might manage to have a meal like this every day. “Come now!”
said some of them, “let us steal a march upon Mehmed one day and lay
hands upon his table, and then there will be an end to the fool’s
glory.” And they did so.
What could the poor, empty-bellied fool do then? Why he went to the
wayside spring and asked again: “I want my lebleb, I want my lebleb!”
And he asked and asked so long that at last the Jinn popped up his head
again out of the spring and inquired what was the matter. “I want my
lebleb, I want my lebleb!” cried the fool.--“But where’s thy little
table?”--“They stole it.”
The big-lipped Jinn again popped down, and when he rose out of the
spring again he had a little mill in his hand. This he gave to the fool
and said to him: “Grind it to the right and gold will flow out of it,
grind it to the left and it will give thee silver.” So the youth took
the mill home and ground it first to the right and then to the left, and
huge treasures of gold and silver lay heaped about him on the floor. So
he grew such a rich man that his equal was not to be found in the
village, nay, nor in the town either.
But no sooner had the people of the village got to know all about the
little mill than they laid their heads together and schemed and schemed
till the mill also disappeared[8] one fine morning from Mehmed’s
cottage. Then Mehmed ran off to the spring once more and cried: “I want
my lebleb, I want my lebleb!”
“But where is thy little table? Where is thy little mill?” asked the
big-lipped Jinn.
“They have stolen them both from me,” lamented the witless one, and he
wept bitterly.
Again the Jinn bobbed down, and this time he brought up two sticks with
him. He gave them to the fool, and impressed upon him very strongly on
no account to say: “Strike, strike, my little sticks!”
Mehmed took the sticks, and first he turned them to the right and then
to the left, but could make nothing of them. Then he thought he would
just try the effect of saying: “Strike, strike, my little sticks!” and
no sooner were the words out of his mouth than the sticks fell upon him
unmercifully, and belaboured him on every part of the body that can
feel--the head, the foot, the arm, the back--till he was nothing but one
big ache. “Stop, stop, my little sticks!” cried he, and lo! the two
sticks were still. Then, for all his aches and pains, Mehmed rejoiced
greatly that he had found out the mystery.
He had no sooner got home with the two sticks than he called together
all the villagers, but said not a word about what he meant to do. In
less than a couple of hours everybody had assembled there, and awaited
the new show with great curiosity. Then Mehmed came with his two sticks
and cried: “Strike, strike, my little sticks, strike, strike!” whereupon
the two sticks gave the whole lot of them such a rub-a-dub-dubbing that
it was as much as they could do to howl for mercy. “Now,” said Mehmed,
who was getting his wits back again, “I’ll have no mercy till you have
given back to me my little table and my little mill.”
The people of the village, all bruised and bleeding as they were,
consented to everything, and hurried off for the little table and the
little mill. Then Mehmed cried: “Stand still, my little sticks!” and
there was peace and quiet as before.
Then the man took away the three gifts to his own village, and as he now
had money he grew more sensible, and there also he found his brother. He
gave all the buried treasure to his brother, and each of them sought out
a damsel meet to be a wife, and married, and lived each in a world of
his own. And there was not a wiser man in that village than Mad Mehmed
now that he had grown rich.
THE GOLDEN-HAIRED CHILDREN
Once upon a time, in days long gone by, when my father was my father,
and I was my fathers son, when my father was my son, and I was my
father’s mother, once upon a time, I say, at the uttermost ends of the
world, hard by the realm of demons, stood a great city.
In this same city there dwelt three poor damsels, the daughters of a
poor wood-cutter. From morn to eve, from evening to morning, they did
nothing but sew and stitch, and when the embroideries were finished, one
of them would go to the market-place and sell them, and so purchase
wherewithal to live upon.
Now it fell out, one day, that the Padishah of that city was wroth with
the people, and in his rage he commanded that for three days and three
nights nobody should light a candle in that city. What were these three
poor sisters to do? They could not work in the dark. So they covered
their window with a large thick curtain, lit a tiny rushlight, and sat
them down to earn their daily bread.
On the third night of the prohibition, the Padishah took it into his
head to go round the city himself to see whether every one was keeping
his commandment. He chanced to step in front of the house of the three
poor damsels, and as the folds of the curtain did not quite cover the
bottom of the window he caught sight of the light within. The damsels,
however, little suspecting their danger, went on sewing and stitching
and talking amongst themselves about their poor affairs.
“Oh,” said the eldest, “if only the Padishah would wed me to his chief
cook, what delicious dishes I should have every day. Yes, and I would
embroider him for it a carpet so long that all his horses and all his
men could find room upon it.”
“As for me,” said the middling damsel, “I should like to be wedded to
the keeper of his wardrobe. What lovely splendid raiment I should then
have to put on. And then I would make the Padishah a tent so large, that
all his horses and all his men should find shelter beneath it.”
“Well,” cried the youngest damsel, “I’ll look at nobody but the Padishah
himself, and if he would only take me to wife I would bear him two
little children with golden hair. One should be a boy and the other a
girl, and a half-moon should shine on the forehead of the boy, and a
bright star should sparkle on the temples of the girl.”
The Padishah heard the discourse of the three damsels, and no sooner did
the red dawn shine in the morning sky than he sent for all three to the
palace. The eldest he gave to his head pantler, the second to his head
chamberlain, but the youngest he took for himself.
And in truth it fared excellently well with the three damsels. The
eldest got so many rich dishes to eat, that when it came to sewing the
promised carpet she could scarce move her needle for the sleep of
surfeit. So they sent her back again to the wood-cutters hut. The second
damsel, too, when they dressed her up in gold and silver raiment, would
not deign to dirty her fingers by making tents, so they sent her back
too, to keep her elder sister company.
And how about the youngest? Well, after nine months and ten days the two
elder sisters came sidling up to the palace to see if the poor thing
would really be as good as her word, and bring forth the two wondrous
children. In the gates of the palace they met an old woman, and they
persuaded her with gifts and promises to meddle in the matter. Now this
old woman was the devil’s own daughter, so that mischief and malice
were her meat and drink. She now went and picked up two pups and took
them with her to the sick woman’s bed.
And oh, my soul! the wife of the Padishah brought forth two little
children like shining stars. One was a boy, the other a girl; on the
boys forehead was a half-moon and on the girl’s a star, so that darkness
was turned to light when they were by. Then the wicked old woman
exchanged the children for the pups, and told it in the ears of the
Padishah that his wife had brought forth two pups. The Padishah was like
to have had a fit in the furiousness of his rage. He took his poor wife,
buried her up to the waist in the ground, and commanded throughout the
city that every passer-by should strike her on the head with a stone.
But no sooner had the evil witch got hold of the two children, than she
took them a long way outside the town, exposed them on the bank of a
flowing stream, and returned to the palace right glad that she had done
her work so well.
Now close to the water where the two children lay stood a hut where
lived an aged couple. The old man had a she-goat which used to go out in
the morning to graze, and come back in the evening to be milked, and
that was how the poor people kept body and soul together. One day,
however, the old woman was
[Illustration: The Golden-Haired Children.--p. 57.]
surprised to find that the goat did not give one drop of milk. She
complained about it to the old man her husband, and told him to follow
the goat to see if perchance there was any one who stole the milk.
So the next day the old man went after the goat, which went right up to
the water’s edge, and then disappeared behind a tree. And what do you
think he saw? He saw a sight which would have delighted your eyes
also--two golden-haired children were lying in the grass, and the goat
went right up to them and gave them to suck. Then she bleated to them a
little, and so left them and went off to graze. And the old man was so
delighted at the sight of the little starry things, that he was like to
have lost his head for joy. So he took the little ones (Allah had not
blessed him with children of his own) and carried them to his hut and
gave them to his wife. The woman was filled with a still greater joy at
the children which Allah had given her, and took care of them, and
brought them up. But now the little goat came bleating in as if in sore
distress, but the moment she saw the children, she went to them and
suckled them, and then went out to graze again.
But time comes and goes. The two wondrous children grew up and scampered
up hill and down dale, and the dark woods were bright with the radiance
of their golden hair. They hunted the wild beasts, tended sheep, and
helped the old people by word and deed. Time came and went till the
children had grown up, and the old people had become very old indeed.
The golden-haired ones grew in strength while the silver-haired ones
grew in feebleness, till, at last, one morning they lay dead there, and
the brother and sister were left all alone. Sorely did the poor little
things weep and wail, but was ever woe mended by weeping? So they buried
their old parents, and the girl stayed at home with the little she-goat,
while the lad went a-hunting, for how to find food was now their great
care and their little care too.
One day, while he was hunting wild beasts in the forest, he met his
father, the Padishah, but he did not know it was his father, neither did
the father recognize his son. Yet the moment the Padishah beheld the
wondrously beautiful child, he longed to clasp him to his breast, and
commanded those about him to inquire of the child from whence he came.
Then one of the courtiers went up to the youth, and said: “Thou hast
shot much game there, my Bey!”--“Allah also has created much,” replied
the youth, “and there is enough for thee and for me also,” and with that
he left him like a blockhead.
But the Padishah went back to his palace, and was sick at heart because
of the boy; and when they asked what ailed him, he said that he had
seen such a wondrously beautiful child in the forest, and that he loved
him so that he could rest no more. The boy had the very golden hair and
the same radiant forehead that his wife had promised him.
The old woman was sore afraid at these words. She hastened to the
stream, saw the house, peeped in, and there sat a lovely girl, like a
moon fourteen days old. The girl entreated the old woman courteously,
and asked her what she sought. The old woman did not wait to be asked
twice; indeed, her foot was scarce across the threshold when she began
to ask the girl with honey-sweet words whether she lived all alone.
“Nay, my mother,” replied the girl; “I have a young brother. In the
day-time he goes hunting, and in the evening he comes home.”
“Dost thou not grow weary of being all alone here by thyself?” inquired
the witch.--“If even I did,” said the girl, “what can I do? I must fill
up my time as best I may.”
“Tell me now, my little diamond! dost thou dearly love this brother of
thine?”
“Of course I do.”
“Well, then, my girl,” said the witch, “I’ll tell thee something, but
don’t let it go any further! When thy brother comes home this evening,
fall to weeping and wailing, and keep it up with all thy might. When
then he asks what ails thee, answer him not, and when he asks thee
again, again give him never a word. When, however, he asks thee a third
time, say that thou art tired to death with staying at home here all by
thyself, and that if he loves thee, he will go to the garden of the
Queen of the Peris, and bring thee from thence a branch. A lovelier
branch thou hast never seen all thy life long.”--The girl promised she
would do this, and the old woman went away.
Towards evening the damsel burst forth a-weeping and wailing till both
her eyes were as red as blood. The brother came home in the evening, and
was amazed to see his sister in such dire distress, yet could he not
prevail upon her to tell him the cause of it. He promised her all the
grass of the field and all the trees of the forest if she would only
tell him what was the matter, and, to satisfy the desire of his sister’s
heart, the golden-haired youth set off next morning for the garden of
the fairy queen. He went on and on, smoking his chibook and drinking
coffee, till he reached the boundaries of the fairy realm. He came to
deserts where no caravan had ever gone; he came to mountains where no
bird could ever fly; he came to valleys where no serpent can ever crawl.
But his trust was in Allah, so he went on and on till he came to an
immense desert which the eye of man had never seen nor the foot of man
trodden. In the midst of it was a beautiful palace, and by the roadside
sat the Mother of Devils, and the smell of her was as the pestilence in
the air all round about her.
The youth went straight up to the Mother of Devils, hugged her to his
breast, kissed her all over, and said: “Good-day, little mother mine! I
am thine own true lad till death!” and he kissed her hand.
“A good-day to thee also, my little son!” replied the Mother of Devils.
“If thou hadst not called me thy dear little mother, if thou hadst not
embraced me, and if thy innocent mother had not been under the earth, I
would have devoured thee at once. But tell me now, my little son,
whither away?”
The poor youth said that he wanted a branch from the garden of the Queen
of the Peris.
“Who put that word in thy mouth, my little son?” asked the woman in
amazement. “Hundreds and hundreds of talismans guard that garden, and
hundreds of souls have perished there by reason thereof.”
Yet the youth did not hold back. “I can but die once,” thought
he.--“Thou dost but go to salute thy innocent, buried mother,” said the
old woman; and then she made the youth sit down beside her and taught
him the way: “Set out on thy quest at daybreak, and never stop till
thou dost see right in front of thee a well and a forest. Draw forth
thine arrows in this forest and catch five to ten birds, but catch them
alive. Take these birds to the well, and when thou hast recited a prayer
twice over, plunge the birds into the well and cry aloud for a key. A
key will straightway be cast out of the well, take it to thee, and go on
thy way. Thou wilt come presently to a large cavern; open the door
thereof with thy key, and, as soon as thy foot is inside, stretch forth
thy right hand into the blank darkness, grip fast hold of whatever thy
hand shall touch, drag the thing quickly forth, and cast the key back
into the well again. But look not behind thee all the time, or Allah
have mercy on thy soul!”
Next day, when the red dawn was in the sky, the youth went forth on his
quest, caught the five to ten birds in the forest, got hold of the key,
opened therewith the door of the cavern, and--oh, Allah!--stretched
forth his right hand, gripped hold of something, and, without once
looking behind him, dragged it all the way to his sister’s hut, and
never stopped till he got there. Only then did he cast his eyes upon
what he had in his hand, and it was neither more nor less than a branch
from the garden of the Queen of the Peris. But what a branch it was! It
was full of little twigs, and the twigs were full of little leaves, and
there was a little bird on every little leaf, and every little bird had
a song of its own. Such music, such melody was there as would have
brought even a dead man to life again. The whole hut was filled with
joy.
Next day the youth again went forth to hunt, and, as he was pursuing the
beast of the forest, the Padishah saw him again. He exchanged a word or
two with the youth, and then returned to his palace, but he was now
sicker than ever, by reason of his love for his son.
Then the old woman strolled off to the hut again, and there she saw the
damsel sitting with the magic branch in her hand.
“Well, my girl!” said the old woman, “what did I tell thee? But that’s
nothing at all. If thy brother would only fetch thee the mirror of the
Queen of the Peris, Allah knows that thou wouldst cast that branch right
away. Give him no peace till he get it for thee.”
The witch had no sooner departed than the damsel began screaming and
wailing so that her brother was at his wit’s end how to comfort her. He
said he would take the whole world on his shoulders to please her, went
straight off to the Mother of Devils, and besought her so earnestly that
she had not the heart to say him nay.
“Thou hast made up thy mind to go under the sod to thy innocent, buried
mother, I see,” cried she, “for not by hundreds but by thousands have
human souls perished in this quest of thine.” Then she instructed the
youth whither he should go and what he should do, and he set off on his
way. He took an iron staff in his hand and tied iron sandals to his
feet, and he went on and on till he came to two doors, as the Mother of
Devils told him he would beforehand. One of these doors was open, the
other was closed. He closed the open door and opened the closed door,
and there, straight before him, was another door. In front of this door
was a lion and a sheep, and there was grass before the lion and flesh
before the sheep. He took up the flesh and laid it before the lion, then
he took up the grass and laid it before the sheep, and they let him
enter unharmed. But now he came to a third door, and in front of it were
two furnaces, and fire burned in the one and ashes smouldered in the
other. He put out the flaming furnace, stirred up the cinders in the
smouldering furnace till they blazed again, and then through the door he
went into the garden of the Peris, and from the garden into the Peri
palace. He snatched up the enchanted mirror, and was hastening away with
it when a mighty voice cried out against him so that the earth and the
heavens trembled. “Burning furnace, seize him, seize him!” cried the
voice, just as he came up to the furnace.
“I can’t,” answered the first furnace, “for he has put me out!” But the
other furnace was grateful to him for kindling it into a blaze again, so
it let him pass by too.
“Lion, lion, tear him to pieces!” cried the mighty voice from the depths
of the palace, when the youth came up to the two beasts.
“Not I,” answered the lion, “for he helped me to a good meal of
flesh!”--Nor would the sheep hurt him either, because he had given it
the grass.--“Open door! let him not out!” cried the voice from within
the palace.--“Nay, but I will!” replied the door; “for had he not opened
me I should be closed still!”--and so the golden-haired youth was not
very long in getting home, to the great joy of his sister. She snatched
at the mirror and instantly looked into it, and--Allah be praised!--she
saw the whole world in it. Then the damsel thought no more of the
Peribranch, for her eyes were glued to the mirror.
Again the youth went a-hunting, and again he caught the eye of the
Padishah. But the sight of the youth this third time so touched the
fatherly heart of the Padishah that they carried him back to his palace
half fainting. Then the witch guessed only too well how matters stood.
So she arose and went to the damsel, and so filled her foolish little
head with her tales that she persuaded her not to give her brother rest
day and night till he had brought her the Queen of the Peris herself.
“That’ll make him break his hatchet anyhow!” thought the old woman. But
the damsel rejoiced beforehand at the thought of having the Queen of the
Peris also, and in her impatience could scarce wait for her brother to
come home.
When her brother came home she shed as many tears as if she were a cloud
dripping rain. In vain her brother tried to prove to her how distant and
how dangerous was the way she would fain have him go. “I want the Queen
of the Peris, and have her I must,” cried the damsel.
So again the youth set out on his journey, went straight to the Mother
of Devils, pressed her hand, kissed her lips, pressed her lips and
kissed her hand, and said: “Oh, my mother! help me in this my sore
need!” The Mother of Devils was amazed at the valour of the man, and
never ceased dissuading him from his purpose, for every human soul that
goes on such a quest must needs perish.--“Die I may, little mother!”
cried the youth, “but I will not come back without her.”
So what could the Mother of Devils do but show him the way? “Go the same
road,” said she, “that led thee to the branch, and then go on to where
thou didst find the mirror. Thou wilt come at last to a large desert,
and beyond the desert thou wilt see two roads, but look neither to the
right hand nor yet to the left, but go right on through the sooty
darkness betwixt them. When now it begins to grow a little lighter, thou
wilt see a large cypress wood, and in this cypress wood a large tomb. In
this tomb, turned to stone, are all those who ever desired the Queen of
the Peris. Stop not there, but go right on to the palace of the Queen of
the Peris and call out her name with the full strength of thy lungs.
What will happen to thee after that not even I can tell thee.”
Next day the youth set out on his journey. He prayed by the wayside
well, opened all the gates he came to, and, looking neither to the right
hand nor to the left, went on straight before him through the sooty
darkness. All at once it began to grow a little lighter, and a large
cypress wood appeared right in front of him. The leaves of the trees
were of a burning green, and their drooping crowns hid snow-white tombs.
Nay, but they were not tombs, but stones as big as men. Nay, but they
were not stones at all, but men who had turned, who had stiffened, into
stone. There was neither man, nor spirit, nor noise, nor breath of wind,
and the youth froze with horror to his very marrow. Nevertheless he
plucked up his courage and went on his way. He looked straight before
him all the time, and his eyes were almost blinded by a dazzling light.
Was it the sun he saw? No, it was the palace of the Queen of the Peris!
Then he rallied all the strength that was left in him and shouted the
name of the Queen of the Peris with all his might, and the words had not
yet died away upon his lips when his whole body up to his knee-cap
stiffened into stone. Again he shouted with all his might, and he turned
to stone up to his navel. Then he shouted for the last time with all his
might, and stiffened up to his throat first and then up to his head,
till he became a tombstone like the rest.
But now the Queen of the Peris came into her garden, and she had silver
sandals on her feet and a golden saucer in her hand, and she drew water
from a diamond fountain, and when she watered the stone youth, life and
motion came back to him.
“Well, thou youth thou,” said the Queen of the Peris, “‘tis not enough,
then, that thou hast taken away my Peri branch and my magic mirror, but
thou must needs, forsooth, venture hither a third time! Thou shalt share
the fate of thy innocent buried mother, stone thou shalt become and
stone shalt thou remain. What brought thee hither?--speak!”
“I came for thee,” replied the youth very courageously.
“Well, as thou hast loved me so exceedingly, no harm shall befall thee,
and we will go away together.”
Then the youth begged her to have compassion on all the men she had
turned to stone and give them back their lives again. So the Peri
returned to her palace, packed up her baggage, which was small in weight
but priceless in value, filled the little golden saucer with water, and
sprinkled therewith all the stones and the whole multitude of the stones
became men. They all took horse, and as they quitted the Peri realm, the
earth trembled beneath them and the sky was shaken as if the seven
worlds and the seven heavens were mingled together, so that the youth
would have died of fright if the Queen of the Peris had not been by his
side. Never once did they look behind them, but galloped on and on till
they came to the house of the youth’s sister, and such was their joy and
gladness at seeing each other again that place could scarce be found for
the Queen of the Peris. But now the youth was in no great hurry to go
hunting as before, for he had changed hearts with the lovely Queen of
the Peris, and she was his and he was hers.
Now when the Queen of the Peris had heard the history of the children
and their parents, and the fate of their innocent mother, she said one
morning to the youth: “Go a-hunting in the forest, and thou wilt meet
the Padishah. The first thing he will do will be to invite thee to the
palace, but beware lest thou accept his invitation.” And so indeed it
turned out. Scarcely had he taken a turn in the wood than the Padishah
stood before him, and, one word leading to another, he invited the youth
to his palace, but the youth would not go.
Early next morning the Peri awoke the children, clapped her hands
together and called her Lala,[9] and immediately a huge negro sprang up
before them. So big was he that one of his lips touched the sky while
the other swept the earth. “What dost thou command me, my Sultana?”
cried the Lala.
“Fetch me hither my father’s steed!” commanded the Peri.
The negro vanished like a hurricane, and, a moment afterwards, the steed
stood before them, and the like of it was not to be found in the wide
world.
The youth leaped upon the horse, and the splendid suite of the Padishah
was already waiting for him at the roadside.
But--O Allah, forgive me!--I have forgotten the best of the story. The
Peri charged the youth as he quitted her to take heed, while he was in
the palace of the Padishah, to the neighing of his horse. At the first
neighing he was to hasten back.
So the youth went to meet the Padishah on his diamond-bridled charger,
and behind him came a gay and gallant retinue. He saluted the people on
the right hand and on the left all the way to the palace, and there they
welcomed him with a pomp the like of which was never known before. They
ate and drank and made merry till the Padishah could scarce contain
himself for joy, but then the steed neighed, the youth arose, and all
their entreaties to him to stay could not turn him from his set purpose.
He mounted his horse, invited the Padishah to be his guest on the
following day, and returned home to the Peri and his own sister.
Meanwhile the Peri dug up the mother of the children, and so put her to
rights again by her Peri arts that she became just as she was in the
days of her first youth. But she spake not a word about the mother to
the children, nor a word about the children to the mother. On the
morning of the reception of guests she rose up early and commanded that
on the spot where the little hut stood a palace should rise, the like of
which eye hath never seen nor ear heard of, and there were as many
precious stones heaped up there as were to be found in the whole
kingdom. And then the garden that surrounded that palace! There were
multitudes of flowers, each one lovelier than the other, and on every
flower there was a singing bird, and every bird had feathers aglow with
light, so that one could only look at it all open-mouthed and cry: “Oh!
oh!” And the palace itself was full of domestics, there were black harem
slaves, and white captive youths, and dancers and singers, and players
of stringed instruments--more than thou canst count, count thou never so
much, and words cannot tell of the splendour of the retinue which went
forth to greet the Padishah as a guest.
“These children are not of mortal birth!” thought the Padishah to
himself, when he beheld all these marvels, “or if they _are_ of mortal
birth a Peri must have had a hand in the matter.”
They led the Padishah into the most splendid room of the palace, they
brought him coffee and sherbet, and then the music spoke to him, and the
singing birds--oh! a man could have listened to them for ever and ever!
Then rich meats on rare and precious dishes were set before him, and
then the dancers and the jugglers diverted him till the evening.
At eventide the servants came and bowed before the Padishah and said:
“My lord! peace be with thee! They await thee in the harem!” So he
entered the harem, and there he saw before him the golden-haired youth,
with a beautiful half-moon shining on his forehead, and his bride, the
Peri-Queen, and his own consort, the Sultana, who had been buried in
the earth, and by her side a golden-haired maiden with a star sparkling
on her forehead. There stood the Padishah as if turned to stone, but his
consort ran up to him and kissed the edge of his garment, and the
Peri-Queen began to tell him the whole of her life and how everything
had happened.
The Padishah was nigh to dying in the fulness of his joy. He could
scarce believe his eyes, but he pressed his consort to his breast and
embraced the two beauteous children, and the Queen of the Peris
likewise. He forgave the sisters of the Sultana their offences, but the
old witch was mercilessly destroyed by lingering tortures. But he and
his consort and her son and the Queen of the Peris, and his daughter,
and his daughter’s bridegroom sat down to a great banquet and made
merry. Forty days and forty nights they feasted, and the blessing of
Allah was upon them.
THE HORSE-DEVIL AND THE WITCH
There was once upon a time a Padishah who had three daughters. One day
the old father made him ready for a journey, and calling to him his
three daughters straightly charged them to feed and water his favourite
horse, even though they neglected everything else. He loved the horse so
much that he would not suffer any stranger to come near it.
So the Padishah went on his way, but when the eldest daughter brought
the fodder into the stable the horse would not let her come near him.
Then the middling daughter brought the forage, and he treated her
likewise. Last of all the youngest daughter brought the forage, and when
the horse saw her he never budged an inch, but let her feed him and then
return to her sisters. The two elder sisters were content that the
youngest should take care of the horse, so they troubled themselves
about it no more.
The Padishah came home, and the first thing he asked was whether they
had provided the horse with everything. “He wouldn’t let us come near
him,” said the two elder sisters; “it was our youngest sister here who
took care of him.”
No sooner had the Padishah heard this than he gave his youngest daughter
to the horse to wife, but his two other daughters he gave to the sons of
his Chief Mufti and his Grand Vizier, and they celebrated the three
marriages at a great banquet, which lasted forty days. Then the youngest
daughter turned into the stable, but the two eldest dwelt in a splendid
palace. In the daytime the youngest sister had only a horse for a
husband and a stable for a dwelling; but in the night-time the stable
became a garden of roses, the horse-husband a handsome hero, and they
lived in a world of their own. Nobody knew of it but they two. They
passed the day together as best they could, but eventide was the time of
their impatient desires.
One day the Padishah held a tournament in the palace. Many gallant
warriors entered the lists, but none strove so valiantly as the husbands
of the Sultan’s elder daughters.
“Only look now!” said the two elder daughters to their sister who dwelt
in the stable, “only look now! how our husbands overthrow all the other
warriors with their lances; our two lords are not so much lords as
lions! Where is this horse-husband of thine, prythee?”
On hearing this from his wife, the horse-husband shivered all over,
turned into a man, threw himself on horseback, told his wife not to
betray him on any account, and in an instant appeared within the lists.
He overthrew every one with his lance, unhorsed his two brothers-in-law,
and re-appeared in the stable again as if he had never left it.
The next day, when the sports began again, the two elder sisters mocked
as before, but then the unknown hero appeared again, conquered and
vanished. On the third day the horse-husband said to his wife: “If ever
I should come to grief or thou shouldst need my help, take these three
wisps of hair, burn them, and it will help thee wherever thou art.” With
that he hastened to the games again and triumphed over his
brothers-in-law. Every one was amazed at his skill, the two elder
sisters likewise, and again they said to their younger sister: “Look how
these heroes excel in prowess! They are very different to thy dirty
horse-husband!”
The girl could not endure standing there with nothing to say for
herself, so she told her sisters that the handsome hero was no other
than her horse-husband--and no sooner had she pointed at him than he
vanished from before them as if he had never been. Then only did she
call to mind her lord’s command to her not to betray her secret, and
away she hurried off to the stable. But ’twas all in vain, neither horse
nor man came to her, and at midnight there was neither rose nor
rose-garden.
“Alas!” wept the girl, “I have betrayed my lord, I have broken my word,
what a crime is mine!” She never closed an eye all that night, but wept
till morning. When the red dawn appeared she went to her father the
Padishah, complained to him that she had lost her horse-husband, and
begged that she might go to the ends of the earth to seek him. In vain
her father tried to keep her back, in vain he pointed out to her that
her husband was now most probably among devils, and she would never be
able to find him--turn her from her resolution he could not. What could
he do but let her go on her way?
With a great desire the damsel set out on her quest, she went on and on
till her tender body was all aweary, and at last she sank down exhausted
at the foot of a great mountain. Then she called to mind the three
hairs, and she took out one and set fire to it--and lo! her lord and
master was in her arms again, and they could not speak for joy.
“Did I not bid thee tell none of my secret?” cried the youth
sorrowfully; “and now if my hag of a mother see thee she will instantly
tear thee to pieces. This mountain is our dwelling-place. She will be
here immediately, and woe to thee if she see thee!”
The poor Sultan’s daughter was terribly frightened, and wept worse than
ever at the thought of losing her lord again, after all her trouble in
finding him. The heart of the devil’s son was touched at her sorrow: he
struck her once, changed her into an apple, and put her on the shelf.
The hag flew down from the mountain with a terrible racket, and
screeched out that she smelt the smell of a man, and her mouth watered
for the taste of human flesh. In vain her son denied that there was any
human flesh there, she would not believe him one bit.
“If thou wilt swear by the egg not to be offended, I’ll show thee what
I’ve hidden,” said her son. The hag swore, and her son gave the apple a
tap, and there before them stood the beautiful damsel. “Behold my wife!”
said he to his mother. The old mother said never a word, what was done
could not be undone. “I’ll give the bride something to do all the same,”
thought she.
They lived a couple of days together in peace and quiet, but the hag was
only waiting for her son to leave the house. At last one day the youth
had work to do elsewhere, and scarcely had he put his foot out of doors
when the hag said to the damsel: “Come, sweep and sweep not!” and with
that she went out and said she should not be back till evening. The
girl thought to herself again and again: “What am I to do now? What did
she mean by ‘sweep and sweep not’?” Then she thought of the hairs, and
she took out and burned the second hair also. Immediately her lord stood
before her and asked her what was the matter, and the girl told him of
his mother’s command: “Sweep and sweep not!” Then her lord explained to
her that she was to sweep out the chamber, but not to sweep the
ante-chamber.
The girl did as she was told, and when the hag came home in the evening
she asked the girl whether she had accomplished her task. “Yes, little
mother,” replied the bride, “I have swept and I have not swept.”--“Thou
daughter of a dog,” cried the old witch, “not thine own wit but my son’s
mouth hath told thee this thing.”
The next morning when the hag got up she gave the damsel vases, and told
her to fill them with tears. The moment the hag had gone the damsel
placed the three vases before her, and wept and wept, but what could her
few teardrops do to fill them? Then she took out and burned the third
hair.
Again her lord appeared before her, and explained to her that she must
fill the three vases with water, and then put a pinch of salt in each
vase. The girl did so, and when the hag came home in the evening and
demanded an account of her work, the girl showed her the three vases
full of tears. “Thou daughter of a dog!” chided the old woman again,
“that is not thy work; but I’ll do for thee yet, and for my son too.”
The next day she devised some other task for her to do; but her son
guessed that his mother would vex the wench, so he hastened home to his
bride. There the poor thing was worrying herself about it all alone, for
the third hair was now burnt, and she did not know how to set about
doing the task laid upon her. “Well, there is now nothing for it but to
run away,” said her lord, “for she won’t rest now till she hath done
thee a mischief.” And with that he took his wife, and out into the wide
world they went.
In the evening the hag came home, and saw neither her son nor his bride.
“They have flown, the dogs!” cried the hag, with a threatening voice,
and she called to her sister, who was also a witch, to make ready and go
in pursuit of her son and his bride. So the witch jumped into a pitcher,
snatched up a serpent for a whip, and went after them.
The demon-lover saw his aunt coming, and in an instant changed the girl
into a bathing-house, and himself into a bath-man sitting down at the
gate. The witch leaped from the pitcher, went to the bath-keeper, and
asked him if he had not seen a young boy and girl pass by that way.
“I have only just warmed up my bath,” said the youth, “there’s nobody
inside it; if thou dost not believe me, thou canst go and look for
thyself.” The witch thought: “‘Tis impossible to get a sensible word out
of a fellow of this sort,” so she jumped into her pitcher, flew back,
and told her sister that she couldn’t find them. The other hag asked her
whether she had exchanged words with any one on the road. “Yes,” replied
the younger sister, “there was a bath-house by the roadside, and I asked
the owner of it about them; but he was either a fool or deaf, so I took
no notice of him.”
“‘Tis thou who wert the fool,” snarled her elder sister. “Didst thou not
recognize in him my son, and in the bath-house my daughter-in-law?” Then
she called her second sister, and sent her after the fugitives.
The devil’s son saw his second aunt flying along in her pitcher. Then he
gave his wife a tap and turned her into a spring, but he himself sat
down beside it, and began to draw water out of it with a pitcher. The
witch went up to him, and asked him whether he had seen a girl and a boy
pass by that way.
“There’s drinkable water in this spring,” replied he, with a vacant
stare, “I am always drawing it.” The witch thought she had to do with a
fool, turned back, and told her sister that she had not met with them.
Her sister asked her if she had not come across any one by the way.
“Yes, indeed,” replied she, “a half-witted fellow was drawing water from
a spring, but I couldn’t get a single sensible word out of him.”
“That half-witted fellow was my son, the spring was his wife, and a
pretty wiseacre thou art,” screeched her sister. “I shall have to go
myself, I see,” and with that she jumped into her pitcher, snatched up a
serpent to serve her as a whip, and off she went.
Meanwhile the youth looked back again, and saw his mother coming after
them. He gave the girl a tap and changed her into a tree, but he himself
turned into a serpent, and coiled himself round the tree. The witch
recognized them, and drew near to the tree to break it to pieces; but
when she saw the serpent coiled round it, she was afraid to kill her own
son along with it, so she said to her son: “Son, son! show me, at least,
the girl’s little finger, and then I’ll leave you both in peace.” The
son saw that he could not free himself from her any other way, and that
she must have at least a little morsel of the damsel to nibble at. So he
showed her one of the girl’s little fingers, and the old hag wrenched
it off, and returned to her domains with it. Then the youth gave the
girl a tap and himself another tap, put on human shape again, and away
they went to the girl’s father, the Padishah. The youth, since his
talisman had been destroyed, remained a mortal man, but the diabolical
part of him stayed at home with his witch-mother and her kindred. The
Padishah rejoiced greatly in his children, gave them a wedding-banquet
with a wave of his finger, and they inherited the realm after his
death.
THE CINDER-YOUTH
Once upon a time that was no time, in the days when the servants of
Allah were many and the misery of man was great, there lived a poor
woman who had three sons and one daughter. The youngest son was
half-witted, and used to roll about all day in the warm ashes.
One day the two elder brothers went out to plough, and said to their
mother: “Boil us something, and send our sister out with it into the
field.”--Now the three-faced devil had pitched his tent close to this
field, and in order that the girl might not come near them he determined
to persuade her to go all round about instead of straight to them.
The mother cooked the dinner and the girl went into the field with it,
but the devil contrived to make her lose her road, so that she wandered
further and further away from the place where she wanted to go. At last,
when her poor head was quite confused, the devil’s wife appeared before
her and asked the terrified girl what she meant by trespassing there.
Then she talked her over and persuaded her to come home with her, that
she might hide her from the vengeance of the devil, her husband.
But the three-faced devil had got home before them, and when they
arrived the old woman told the girl to make haste and get something
ready to eat while her maid-servant stirred up the fire. But scarcely
had she begun to get the dish ready than the devil crept stealthily up
behind her, opened his mouth wide, and swallowed the girl whole, clothes
and all.
Meanwhile her brothers were waiting in the field for their dinner, but
neither the damsel nor the victuals appeared. Afternoon came and went
and evening too, and then the lads went home, and when they heard from
their mother that their sister had gone to seek them early in the
morning they suspected what had happened--their little sister must have
fallen into the hands of the devil. The two elder brothers did not think
twice about it, but the elder of them set off at once to seek his
sister.
He went on and on, puffing at his chibook, sniffing the perfume of
flowers and drinking coffee, till he came to an oven by the wayside. By
the oven sat an old man, who asked the youth on what errand he was
bent. The youth told him of his sister’s case, and said he was going in
search of the three-faced devil, and would not be content till he had
killed him.--“Thou wilt never be able to slay the devil,” said the man,
“till thou hast eaten of bread that has been baked in this oven.”--The
youth thought this no very difficult matter, took the loaves out of the
oven, but scarcely had he bitten a piece out of one of them than the
oven, the man, and the loaves all disappeared before his eyes, and the
bit he had taken swelled within him so that he nearly burst.
The youth hadn’t gone two steps further on when he saw on the highway a
large cauldron, and the cauldron was full of wine. A man was sitting in
front of the cauldron, and he asked him the way, and told him the tale
of the devil. “Thou wilt never be able to cope with the devil,” said the
man, “if thou dost not drink of this wine.” The youth drank, but: “Woe
betide my stomach, woe betide my bowels!” for so plagued was he that he
could not have stood upright if he had not seen two bridges before him.
One of these bridges was of wood and the other was of iron, and beyond
the two bridges were two apple-trees, and one bore unripe bitter apples
and the other sweet ripe ones.
The three-faced devil was waiting on the road to see which bridge he
would choose, the wooden or the iron one, and which apples he would eat,
the sour or the sweet ones. The youth went along the iron bridge, lest
the wooden one might break down, and plucked the sweet apples, because
the green ones were bitter. That was just what the devil wanted him to
do, and he at once sent his mother to meet the youth and entice him into
his house as he had done his sister, and it was not long before he also
found his way into the devil’s belly.
And next in order, the middling brother, not wishing to be behind-hand,
also went in search of his kinsmen. He also could not eat of the bread
his inside also was plagued by the wine, he went across the iron bridge
and ate of the sweet apples, and so he also found his way into the
devil’s belly. Only the youngest brother who lay among the ashes
remained. His mother besought him not to forsake her in her old age. If
the others had gone he at least could remain and comfort her, she said.
But the youth would not listen. “I will not rest,” said Cinderer, “till
I have found the three lost ones, my two brothers and my sister, and
slain the devil.” Then he rose from his chimney corner, and no sooner
had he shaken the ashes from off him than such a tempest arose that all
the labourers at work in the fields left their ploughs where they stood,
and ran off as far as their eyes could see. Then the youngest son
gathered together the ploughshares and bade a blacksmith make a lance of
them, but a lance of such a kind as would fly into the air and come back
again to the hand that hurled it without breaking its iron point. The
smith made the lance, and the youth hurled it. Up into the air flew the
lance, but when it came down again on to the tip of his little finger it
broke to pieces. Then the youth shook himself still more violently in
the ashes, and again the labourers in the field fled away before the
terrible tempest which immediately arose, and the youth gathered
together a still greater multitude of ploughshares and took them to the
smith. The smith made a second lance, and that also flew up into the air
and broke to pieces when it came down again. Then the youth shook
himself in the ashes a third time, and such a hurricane arose that there
was scarce a ploughshare in the whole country-side that was not carried
away. It was only with great difficulty that the smith could make the
third lance, but when that came down on the youth’s finger it did not
break in pieces like the others. “This will do pretty well,” said the
youth, and catching up the lance he went forth into the wide world.
He went on and on and on till he also came to the oven and the cauldron.
The men who guarded the oven and the cauldron stopped him and asked him
his business, and on finding out that he was going to kill the devil,
they told the youth that he must first eat the bread of the oven and
then drink the wine in the cauldron if he could. The son of the cinders
wished for nothing better. He ate the loaves that were baked in the
oven, drank all the wine, and further on he saw the wooden bridge and
the iron bridge, and beyond the bridges the apple-trees.
The devil had observed the youth from afar, and his courage began to
ooze out of him when he saw the deeds of the son of the ashes. “Any fool
can go across the iron bridge,” thought the youth, “I’ll go across the
wooden one,” and as it was no very great feat to eat the sweet apples he
ate the sour ones.--“There will be no joking with this one,” said the
devil, “I see I must get ready my lance and measure my strength with
him.”
The son of the ashes saw the devil from afar, and full of the knowledge
of his own valour went straight up to him.
“If thou doest not homage to me, I’ll swallow thee straight off,” cried
the devil.
“And if thou doest not homage to me, I’ll knock thee to pieces with my
lance,” replied the youth.
“Oh ho! if we’re so brave as all that,” cried the three-faced monster,
“let us out with our lances without losing any more time.”
So the devil out with his lance, whirled it round his head, and aimed it
with all his might at the youth, who gave but one little twist with his
finger, and crick-crack! the devil’s lance broke all to bits. “Now it’s
my turn,” cried the son of the cinders; and he hurled his lance at the
devil with such force that the devil’s first soul flew out of his
nose.--“At it again once more, if thou art a man,” yelled the devil,
with a great effort. “Not I,” cried the youth, “for my mother only bore
me once,” whereupon the devil breathed forth his last soul also. Then
the youth went on to seek the devil’s wife. Her also he chased down the
road after her husband, and when he had cut them both in two, lo and
behold! all three of his kinsfolk stood before him, so he turned back
home and took them with him. Now his brothers and sister had grown very
thirsty in the devil’s belly, and when they saw a large well by the
wayside, they asked their brother Cinder-son to draw them a little
water. Then the youths took off their girdles, tied them together, and
let down the biggest brother, but he had scarcely descended more than
half-way down when he began to shriek unmercifully: “Oh, oh, draw me up,
I have had enough,” so that they had to pull him up and let the second
brother try. And with him it fared the same way. “Now ’tis my turn,”
cried Cinder-son, “but mind you do not pull me
[Illustration: The Cinder-Youth and the Three Damsels.--p. 91.]
up, however loudly I holloa.” So they let down the youngest brother, and
he too began to holloa and bawl, but they paid no heed to it, and let
him down till he stood on the dry bottom of the well. A door stood
before him, he opened it, and there were three lovely damsels sitting in
a room together, and each of them shone like the moon when she is only
fourteen days old. The three damsels were amazed at the sight of the
youth. How durst he come into the devil’s cavern? they asked--and they
begged and besought him to escape as he valued dear life. But the youth
would not budge at any price, till he had got the better of this devil
also. The end of the matter was that he slew the devil and released the
three damsels, who were Sultan’s daughters, and had been stolen from
their fathers and kept here for the last seven years. The two elder
princesses he intended for his two brothers, but the youngest, who was
also the loveliest, he chose for himself, and filling the pitcher with
water he brought the damsels to the bottom of the well, right below the
mouth of it.
First of all he let them draw up the eldest princess for his eldest
brother, then he made them pull up the middling princess for his
middling brother, and then it came to the youngest damsel’s turn. But
she desired that the youth should be drawn up at all hazards and herself
afterwards. “Thy brethren,” she explained, “will be wroth with thee for
keeping the loveliest damsel for thyself, and will not draw thee out of
the well for sheer jealousy.”
“I’ll find my way out even then,” answered the youth, and though she
begged and besought him till there was no more soul in her, he would not
listen to her. Then the damsel drew from her breast a casket and said to
the youth: “If any mischief befall thee, open this casket. Inside it is
a piece of flint, and if thou strike it once a negro efrit will appear
before thee and fulfil all thy desires. If thy brethren leave thee in
the well, go to the palace of the devil and stand by the well. Two rams
come there every day, a black one and a white one; if thou cling fast to
the white one, thou wilt come to the surface of the earth, but if thou
cling on to the black one thou wilt sink down into the seventh world.”
Then he let them draw up the youngest damsel, and no sooner did his
brethren see their brother’s bride and perceive that she was the
loveliest of all, than jealousy overtook them, and in their wrath they
left him in the well and went home with the damsels.
So what else could the poor youth at the bottom of the well do than go
back to the devil’s palace, stand by the well, and wait for the two
rams? Not very long afterwards a white ram came bounding along before
him, and after that a black ram, and the youth, instead of catching
hold of the white ram, seized the black one and immediately perceived
that he was at the bottom of the seventh world.... He went on and on, he
went for a long time and he went for a short time, he went by day and he
went by night, he went up hill and down dale till he could do no more,
and stopped short by a large tree to take a little rest. But what was
that he saw before him? A large serpent was gliding up the trunk of the
tree and would have devoured all the young birds on the tree if
Cinder-son had let him. But the youth quickly drew forth his lance and
cut the serpent in two with a single blow. Then, like one who has done
his work well, he lay down at the foot of the tree, and inasmuch as he
was tired and it was warm he fell asleep at once.
Now while he slept the emerald Anka, who is the mother of the birds and
the Padishah of the Peris, passed by that way, and when she saw the
sleeping youth she fancied him to be her enemy, who was wont to destroy
her children year by year. She was about to cut him to pieces, when the
birds whispered to her not to hurt the youth, because he had killed
their enemy the serpent. It was only then that the Anka perceived the
two halves of the serpent. And now, lest anything should harm the
sleeping youth, she hopped round and round him, and touched him softly
and sheltered him with both her wings lest the sun should scorch him,
and when he awoke from his sleep the wing of the bird was spread over
him like a tent. And now the Anka approached him and said she would fain
reward him for his good deed, and he might make a request of her. Then
replied the youth: “I would fain get to the surface of the earth again.”
“Be it so,” said the emerald bird, “but first thou must get forty tons
of ox-flesh and forty pitchers of water and sit on my back with them, so
that when I say ‘Gik!’ thou mayest give me to eat, and when I say ‘Gak!’
thou mayest give me to drink.”
Then the youth bethought him of his casket, took the flint-stone out of
it, and struck it once, and immediately a black efrit with a mouth as
big as the world stood before him and said: “What dost thou command, my
Sultan?”--“Forty tons of ox-flesh, and forty pitchers of water,” said
the youth. In a short time the efrit brought the flesh and the water,
and the youth packed it all up together and mounted on the wing of the
bird. Off they went, and whenever the Anka cried “Gik!” he gave her
flesh, and whenever she cried “Gak!” he gave her water. They flew from
one layer of worlds to the next, till in a short time they got above the
surface of the earth again, and he dismounted from the bird’s back and
said to her: “Wait here a while, and in a short time I shall be back.”
Then the youth took out his coffer, struck the flint-stone, and bade the
black bounding efrit get him tidings of the three sisters. In a short
time the efrit re-appeared with the three damsels, who were preparing a
banquet for the brothers. He made them all sit on the bird’s back, took
with him again forty tons of ox-flesh and forty pitchers of water, and
away they all went to the land of the three damsels. Every time the Anka
said “Gik!” he gave her flesh to eat, and every time she said “Gak!” he
gave her water to drink. But as the youth now had three with him besides
himself, it came to pass that the flesh ran short, so that when the Anka
said “Gik!” once more he had nothing to give her. Then the youth drew
his knife, cut a piece of flesh out of his thigh, and stuffed it into
the bird’s mouth.[10] The Anka perceived that it was human flesh and did
not eat it, but kept it in her mouth, and when they had reached the
realm of the three damsels, the bird told him that he might now go in
peace.
But the poor youth could not move a step because of the smart in his
leg. “Thou go on first,” he said to the bird, “but I will first rest me
here a while.”
“Nay, but thou art a droll rogue,” quoth the bird, and with that it spit
out of its mouth the piece of human flesh and put it back in its proper
place just as if it had never been cut out.
The whole city was amazed at the sight of the return of the Sultan’s
daughters. The old Padishah could scarce believe his own eyes. He looked
and looked and then he embraced the first princess; he looked and looked
and then he kissed the second princess, and when they had told him the
story he gave his whole kingdom and his three daughters to Cinder-son.
Then the youth sent for his mother and his sister, and they all sat down
to the banquet together. Moreover he found his sister a husband who was
the son of the Vizier, and for forty days and forty nights they were
full of joyfulness.
THE PIECE OF LIVER
Once upon a time there was an old woman who felt she would very much
like to have a piece of liver, so she gave a girl two or three pence,
and bade her buy the liver in the market-place, wash it clean in the
pond, and then bring it home. So the girl went to the market-place,
bought the liver, and took it to the pond to wash it; and while she was
washing it a stork popped down, snatched the liver out of her hand, and
flew away with it. Then the girl cried: “Stork, stork! give me back my
liver, that I may take it to my mammy, lest my mammy beat me!”--“If thou
wilt fetch me a barley-ear instead of it, I’ll give thee back thy
liver,” said the stork. So the girl went to the straw-stalk, and said:
“Straw-stalk, straw-stalk! give me a barley-ear, that I may give the
barley-ear to the stork, that the stork may give me back my liver, that
I may give the liver to my mammy.”--“If thou wilt pray Allah for rain,
thou shalt have a little barley-ear,” said the straw-stalk. But while
she was beginning her prayer, saying: “Oh, Allah, give me rain, that I
may give the rain to the straw-stalk, that the straw-stalk may give me a
barley-ear, that I may give the barley-ear to the stork, that the stork
may give me back my liver, that I may give the liver to my mammy,” while
she was praying thus, up came a man to her and said that without a
censer no prayers could ever get to heaven, so she must go to the
bazaar-keeper for a censer.
So she went to the bazaar-keeper, and cried: “Bazaar-keeper,
bazaar-keeper! give me a censer, that I may burn incense before Allah,
that Allah may give me rain, that I may give rain to the straw-stalk,
that the straw-stalk may give me a barley-ear, that I may give the
barley-ear to the stork, that the stork may give me back my liver, that
I may give my liver to my mammy!”
“I’ll give it thee,” said the bazaar-keeper, “if thou wilt bring me a
boot from the cobbler.”
So the girl went to the cobbler, and said to him: “Cobbler, cobbler!
give me a boot, that I may give the boot to the bazaar-keeper, that the
bazaar-keeper may give me a censer, that I may burn incense before
Allah, that Allah may give me rain, that I may give rain to the
straw-stalk, that the straw-stalk may give me a barley-ear, that I may
give the barley-ear to the stork, that the stork may give me back the
liver, that I may give the liver to my mammy.”
But the cobbler said: “If thou fetch me a hide thou shalt have a boot
for it.”
So the girl went to the tanner, and said: “Tanner, tanner! give me a
hide, that I may give the hide to the cobbler, that the cobbler may give
me a boot, that I may give the boot to the bazaar-keeper, that the
bazaar-keeper may give me a censer, that I may burn incense before
Allah, that Allah may give me rain, that I may give the rain to the
straw-stalk, that the straw-stalk may give me a barley-ear, that I may
give the barley-ear to the stork, that the stork may give me back my
liver, that I may give the liver to my mammy.”
“If thou gettest a hide from the ox, thou wilt get a hide fit for making
a boot,” said the tanner.
So the girl went to the ox, and said to it: “Ox, ox! give me a hide,
that I may give the hide to the tanner, that the tanner may give me
boot-leather, that I may give the boot-leather to the cobbler, that the
cobbler may give me a boot, that I may give the boot to the
bazaar-keeper, that the bazaar-keeper may give me a censer, that I may
burn incense before Allah, that Allah may give me rain, that I may give
the rain to the straw-stalk, that the straw-stalk may give me a
barley-ear, that I may give the barley-ear to the stork, that the stork
may give me back my liver, that I may give the liver to my mammy.”
The ox said: “If thou get me straw I’ll give thee a hide for it!”
So the girl went to the farmer, and said to him: “Farmer, farmer! give
me straw, that I may give the straw to the ox, that the ox may give me a
hide, that I may give the hide to the tanner, that the tanner may give
me shoe-leather, that I may give the shoe-leather to the cobbler, that
the cobbler may give me a shoe, that I may give the shoe to the
bazaar-keeper, that the bazaar-keeper may give me a censer, that I may
burn incense before Allah, that Allah may give me rain, that I may give
rain to the straw-stalk, that the straw-stalk may give me a barley-ear,
that I may give the barley-ear to the stork, that the stork may give me
back my liver, that I may give the liver to my mammy.”
The farmer said to the girl: “I’ll give thee the straw if thou give me a
kiss.”
“Well,” thought the girl to herself, “a kiss is but a little matter if
it free me from all this bother.” So she went up to the farmer and
kissed him, and the farmer gave her straw for the kiss. She took the
straw to the ox, and the ox gave her a hide for the straw. She took the
hide to the tanner, and the tanner gave her shoe-leather. She took the
shoe-leather to the cobbler, and the cobbler gave her a shoe for it. She
took the shoe to the bazaar-keeper, and the bazaar-keeper gave her a
censer. She lit the censer and cried: “Oh, Allah! give me rain, that I
may give the rain to the straw-stalk, that the straw-stalk may give me a
barley-ear, that I may give the barley-ear to the stork, that the stork
may give me back my liver, that I may give the liver to my mammy.” Then
Allah gave her rain, and she gave the rain to the straw-stalk, and the
straw-stalk gave her a barley-ear, and she gave the barley-ear to the
stork, and the stork gave her back her liver, and she gave the liver to
her mammy, and her mammy cooked the liver and ate it.
THE MAGIC TURBAN, THE MAGIC WHIP, AND THE MAGIC CARPET
Once upon a time that was no time there were two brothers. Their father
and mother had died and divided all their property between them. The
elder brother opened a shop, but the younger brother, who was but a
feather-brain, idled about and did nothing; so that at last, what with
eating and drinking and gadding abroad, the day came when he had no more
money left. Then he went to his elder brother and begged a copper or two
of him, and when that all was spent he came to him again, and so he
continued to live upon him.
At last the elder brother began to grow tired of this waste, but seeing
that he could not be quit of his younger brother, he turned all his
possessions into sequins, and embarked on a ship in order to go into
another kingdom. The younger brother, however, had got wind of it, and
before the ship started he managed to creep on board and conceal
himself without any one observing him. The elder brother suspected that
if the younger one heard of his departure he would be sure to follow
after, so he took good care not to show himself on deck. But scarcely
had they unfurled the sails when the two brothers came face to face, and
the elder brother found himself saddled with his younger brother again.
The elder brother was not a little angry, but what was the use of
that!--for the ship did not stop till it came to Egypt. There the elder
brother said to the younger brother: “Thou stay here, and I will go and
get two mules that we may go on further.” The youth sat down on the
shore and waited for his brother, and waited, but waited in vain. “I
think I had better look for him,” thought he, and up he got and went
after his elder brother.
He went on and on and on, he went a short distance and he went a long
distance, six months was he crossing a field; but once as he looked over
his shoulder, he saw that for all his walking he walked no further than
a barley-stalk reaches. Then he strode still more, he strode still
further, he strode for half a year continuously; he kept plucking
violets as he went along, and as he went striding, striding, his feet
struck upon a hill, and there he saw three youths quarrelling with one
another about something. He soon made a fourth, and asked them what they
were tussling about.
“We are the children of one father,” said the youngest of them, “and our
father has just died and left us, by way of inheritance, a turban, a
whip, and a carpet. Whoever puts the turban on his head is hidden from
mortal eyes. Whoever extends himself on the carpet and strikes it once
with the whip can fly far away, after the manner of birds; and we are
eternally quarrelling among ourselves as to whose shall be the turban,
whose the whip, and whose the carpet.”
“All three of them must belong to one of us,” cried they all. “They are
mine, because I am the biggest,” said one.--“They are mine by right,
because I am the middling-sized brother,” cried the second.--“They are
mine, because I am the smallest,” cried the third. From words they
speedily came to blows, so that it was as much as the youth could do to
keep them apart.
“You can’t settle it like that,” said he; “I’ll tell you what we’ll do.
I’ll make an arrow from this little piece of wood, and shoot it off. You
run after it, and he who brings it to me here soonest shall have all
three things.” Away flew the dart, and after it pelted the three
brothers, helter-skelter; but the wise youth knew a trick worth two of
that, for he stuck the turban on his head, sat down on the carpet,
tapped it once with the whip, and cried: “Hipp--hopp! let me be where my
elder brother is!” and when he awoke a large city lay before him.
He had scarce taken more than a couple of steps through the street, when
the Padishah’s herald came along, and proclaimed to the inhabitants of
the town that the Sultan’s daughter disappeared every night from the
palace. Whoever could find out what became of her should receive the
damsel and half the kingdom. “Here am I!” cried the youth, “lead me to
the Padishah, and if I don’t find out, let them take my head!”
So they brought the fool into the palace, and in the evening there lay
the Sultan’s daughter watching, with her eyes half-closed, all that was
going on. The damsel was only waiting for him to go to sleep, and
presently she stuck a needle into her heel, took the candle with her,
lest the youth should awake, and went out by a side door.
The youth had his turban on his head in a trice, and no sooner had he
popped out of the same door than he saw a black efrit standing there
with a golden buckler on his head, and on the buckler sat the Sultan’s
daughter, and they were just on the point of starting off. The lad was
not such a fool as to fancy that he could keep up with them by himself,
so he also leaped on to the buckler, and very nearly upset the pair of
them in consequence. The efrit was alarmed, and asked the damsel in
Allah’s name what she was about, as they were within a hair’s-breadth of
falling. “I never moved,” said the damsel; “I am sitting on the buckler
just as you put me there.”
The black efrit had scarcely taken a couple of steps, when he felt that
the buckler was unusually heavy. The youth’s turban naturally made him
invisible, so the efrit turned to the damsel and said: “My Sultana, thou
art so heavy to-day that I all but break down beneath thee!”--“Darling
Lala!” replied the girl, “thou art very odd to-night, for I am neither
bigger nor smaller than I was yesterday.”
Shaking his head the black efrit pursued his way, and they went on and
on till they came to a wondrously beautiful garden, where the trees were
made of nothing but silver and diamonds. The youth broke off a twig and
put it in his pocket, when straightway the trees began to sigh and weep
and say: “There’s a child of man here who tortures us! there’s a child
of man here who tortures us!”
The efrit and the damsel looked at each other. “They sent a youth in to
me to-day,” said the damsel, “maybe his soul is pursuing us.”
Then they went on still further, till they came to another garden, where
every tree was sparkling with gold and precious stones. Here too the
youth broke off a twig and shoved it into his pocket, and immediately
the earth and the sky shook, and the rustling of the trees said:
“There’s a child of man here torturing us, there’s a child of man here
torturing us,” so that both he and the damsel very nearly fell from the
buckler in their fright. Not even the efrit knew what to make of it.
After that they came to a bridge, and beyond the bridge was a fairy
palace, and there an army of slaves awaited the damsel, and with their
hands straight down by their sides they bowed down before her till their
foreheads touched the ground. The Sultan’s daughter dismounted from the
efrit’s head, the youth also leaped down; and when they brought the
princess a pair of slippers covered with diamonds and precious stones,
the youth snatched one of them away, and put it in his pocket. The girl
put on one of the slippers, but being unable to find the other, sent for
another pair, when, presto! one of these also disappeared. At this the
damsel was so annoyed that she walked on without slippers; but the
youth, with the turban on his head and the whip and the carpet in his
hand, followed her everywhere like her shadow. So the damsel went on
before, and he followed her into a room, and there he saw the black
Peri, one of whose lips touched the sky, while the other lip swept the
ground. He angrily asked the damsel where she had been all the time, and
why she hadn’t come sooner. The damsel told him about the youth who had
arrived the evening before, and about what had happened on the way, but
the Peri comforted her by saying that the whole thing was fancy, and she
was not to trouble herself about it any more. After that he sat down
with the damsel, and ordered a slave to bring them sherbet. A black
slave brought the noble drink in a lovely diamond cup, but just as he
was handing it to the Sultan’s daughter the invisible youth gave the
hand of the slave such a wrench that he dropped and broke the cup to
pieces. A piece of this also the youth concealed in his pocket.
“Now didn’t I say that something was wrong?” cried the Sultan’s
daughter. “I want no sherbet nor anything else, and I think I had better
get back again as soon as possible.”--“Tush! tush!” said the efrit, and
he ordered other slaves to bring them something to eat. So they brought
a little table covered with many dishes, and they began to eat together;
whereupon the hungry youth also set to work, and the viands disappeared
as if three were eating instead of two.
And the black Peri himself began to be a little impatient, when not only
the food but also the forks and spoons began to disappear, and he said
to his sweetheart, the Sultan’s daughter, that perhaps it would be as
well if she did make haste home again. First of all the black efrit
wanted to kiss the girl, but the youth slipped in between them, pulled
them asunder, and one of them fell to the right and the other to the
left. They both turned pale, called the Lala with his buckler, the
damsel sat upon it, and away they went. But the youth took down a sword
from the wall, bared his arm, and with one blow he chopped off the head
of the black Peri. No sooner had his head rolled from his shoulders than
the heavens roared so terribly, and the earth groaned so horribly, and a
voice cried so mightily: “Woe to us, a child of man hath slain our
king!” that the terrified youth knew not whether he stood on his head or
his heels.
He seized his carpet, sat upon it, gave it one blow with his whip, and
when the Sultan’s daughter returned to the palace, there she found the
youth snoring in his room. “Oh, thou wretched bald-pate,” cried the
damsel viciously, “what a night I’ve had of it. So much the worse for
thee!” Then she took out a needle and pricked the youth in the heel, and
because he never stirred she fancied he was asleep, and lay down to
sleep herself also.
Next morning when she awoke she bade the youth prepare for death, as his
last hour had come. “Nay,” replied he, “not to thee do I owe an account
of myself; let us both come before the Padishah.”
Then they led him before the father of the damsel, but he said he would
only tell them what had happened in the night if they called all the
people of the town together. “In that way I shall find my brother,
perhaps,” thought he. So the town-crier called all the people together,
and the youth stood on a high daïs beside the Padishah and the Sultana,
and began to tell them the whole story, from the efrit’s buckler to the
Peri king. “Believe him not, my lord Padishah and father; he lies, my
lord father and Padishah!” stammered the damsel; whereupon the youth
drew from his pocket the diamond twig, the twig of gems, the golden
slipper, the precious spoons and forks. Then he went on to tell them of
the death of the black Peri, when all at once he caught sight of his
elder brother, whom he had been searching for so long. He had now
neither eyes nor ears for anything else, but leaping off the daïs, he
forced his way on and on through the crowd to his brother, till they
both came together.
Then the elder brother told _their_ story, while the younger brother
begged the Padishah to give his daughter and half the kingdom to his
elder brother. He was quite content, he said, with the magic turban and
the magic whip and carpet to the day of his death, if only he might live
close to his elder brother.
But the Sultan’s daughter rejoiced most of all when she heard of the
death of the Peri king. He had carried her off by force from her room
one day, and so enchanted her with his power that she had been unable to
set herself free. In her joy she agreed that the youth’s elder brother
should be her lord; and they made a great banquet, at which they feasted
forty days and forty nights with one another. I also was there, and I
begged so much pilaw[11] from the cook, and I got so much in the palm of
my hand, that I limp to this day.
THE WIND-DEMON
There was once upon a time an old Padishah who had three sons and three
daughters. One day the old man fell ill, and though they called all the
leeches together to help him, his disease would not take a turn for the
better. “I already belong to Death,” he thought, and calling to him his
sons and daughters, he thus addressed them: “If I die, he among you
shall be Padishah who watches three nights at my tomb. As for my
daughters, I give them to him who first comes to woo them.” And with
that he died, and was buried as became a Padishah.
Now as the realm could have a Padishah in no other way, the eldest son
went to his father’s tomb and sat there for half the night, said his
prayers upon his carpet, and awaited the dawn. But all at once a
horrible din arose in the midst of the darkness, and so frightened was
he that he snatched up his slippers and never stopped till he got home.
The next night the middling son also went out to the tomb, and he also
sat there for half the night, but no sooner did he hear the great din
than he too caught up his slippers and hurried off homewards. So it now
came to the turn of the third and youngest son.
The third son took his sword, stuck it in his girdle, and went off to
the tomb. Sure enough, when he had sat there till midnight, he heard the
horrible din, and so horrible was it that the very earth trembled. The
youth pulled himself together, went straight towards the spot from
whence the noise came loudest, and behold! right in front of him stood a
huge dragon. Drawing his sword, the youth fell upon the dragon so
furiously that at last the monster had scarcely strength enough left to
say: “If thou art a man, put thy heel upon me and strike me with thy
sword but once more!”
“Not I,” cried the King’s son, “my mother only bore me into the world
once,” whereupon the dragon yielded up its filthy soul. The King’s son
would have cut off the beast’s ears and nose, but he could not see very
well in the dark, and began groping about for them, when all at once he
saw afar off a little shining light. He went straight towards it, and
there in the midst of the brightness he saw an old man. Two globes were
in his hand, one black and the other white; the black globe he was
turning round and round, and from the white globe proceeded the light.
“What art thou doing, old father?” asked the King’s son.
“Alas! my son,” replied the old man, “my business is my bane, I hold
fast the nights and let go the days.”--“Alas! my father,” replied the
King’s son, “my task is even greater than thine.” With that he tied
together the old man’s arms, so that he might not let go the days, and
went on still further to seek the light. He went on and on till he came
to the foot of a castle wall, and forty men were taking counsel together
beneath it.
“What’s the matter?” inquired the King’s son.--“We should like to go
into the castle to steal the treasure,” said the forty men, “but we
don’t know how.”
“I would very soon help you if you only gave me a little light,” said
the King’s son. This the robbers readily promised to do, and after that
he took a packet of nails, knocked them into the castle wall, row after
row, right up to the top, clambered up himself, and then shouted down to
them: “Now you come up one by one, just as I have done.”
So the robbers caught hold of the nails and began to clamber up, one
after another, the whole forty of them. But the youth was not idle. He
drew his sword, and the moment each one of them reached the top, he
chopped off his head and pitched his body into the courtyard, and so he
did to the whole forty. Then he leaped down into the courtyard himself,
and there right before him was a beautiful palace; and no sooner had he
opened the door than a serpent glided past him, and crawled up a column
close by the staircase. The youth drew his sword to strike the serpent;
he struck and cut the serpent in two, but his sword remained in the
stone wall, and he forgot to draw it out again. Then he mounted the
staircase and went into a room, and there lay a lovely damsel asleep. So
he went out again, closed the door very softly behind him, and ascended
to the second flight, and went into a room there, and before him lay a
still lovelier damsel on a bed. This door he also closed, and went up to
the third and topmost flight, and opened a door there also, and lo! the
whole room was piled up with nothing but steel, and such a splendid
damsel lay asleep there that if the King’s son had had a thousand
hearts, he would have loved her with them all. This door he also closed,
remounted the castle wall, re-descended on the other side by means of
the nails, which he took out as he descended, and so reached the ground
again. Then he went straight up to the old man whose arms he had tied
together. “Oh, my son!” cried he from afar, “thou hast remained a long
time away. Everybody’s side will be aching from so much lying down.”
Then the youth untied his arms, the old man let the white globes of day
move round again, and the youth went up to the dragon, cut off its ears
and nose, and put them in his knapsack. Then he went back to the palace,
and when he drew nigh to it he found that they had made his eldest
brother Padishah. However, he let it be and said nothing.
Not very long afterwards a lion came to the palace, and went straight up
to the Padishah. “What dost thou want?” asked the Padishah. “I want thy
eldest sister to wife,” replied the lion. “I give not my sister to a
brute beast,” said the Padishah, and forthwith they began chasing the
lion away; but now the King’s son appeared and said: “Such was not our
father’s will, but he said we were to give her to whomsoever asked for
her.” With that they brought the damsel and gave her to the lion, and he
took her and was gone.
The next day came a tiger, and demanded the middling daughter from the
Padishah. The two elder brethren would by no means give her up, but
again the youngest brother insisted that they should do so, as it was
their father’s wish. So they sent for the damsel and gave her to the
tiger.
On the third day a bird alighted in the palace, and said that he must
have the youngest of the Sultan’s daughters. The Padishah and the
second brother were again unwilling to agree to it, but the youngest
brother stood them out that the bird ought to be allowed to fly back
with his sister. Now this bird was the Padishah of the Peris, the
emerald Anka. But now let us see what happened in that castle of which
we have before spoken.
In this castle there dwelt just about this time a Padishah and his three
daughters. Rising one morning and going out, he saw a man walking in the
palace. He went out into the courtyard, and saw a serpent cut in two on
the staircase, and a sword sticking in the stone column, and going on
still further, and searching in all directions, he perceived the bodies
of the forty robbers in his castle moat. “Not an enemy, but only the
hand of a friend could have done this,” thought he; “and he has saved me
from the robbers and the serpent. The sword is my good friend’s, but
where is the sword’s master?” And he took counsel with his Vizier.
“Oh, we’ll soon get to the bottom of that,” said the Vizier. “Let us
make a great bath, and invite every one to come and bathe in it for
nothing. We will watch carefully each single man, and whosoever has a
sheath without a sword will be the man who has saved us.” And the
Padishah did so. He made ready a big bath, and the whole realm came and
bathed in it.
Next day the Vizier said to him: “Every one has been here to bathe save
only the King’s three sons, they still remain behind.” Then the Padishah
sent word to the King’s three sons to come and bathe, and looking
closely at their garments, he perceived that the youngest of the three
wore a sheath without a sword.
Then the Padishah called the King’s son to him and said: “Great is the
good thou hast done to me, ask me what thou wilt for it!”--“I ask nought
from thee,” replied the King’s son, “but thy youngest daughter.”
“Alas! my son, ask me anything but that,” sighed the Padishah. “Ask my
crown, my kingdom, and I’ll give them to thee, but my daughter I cannot
give thee.”
“If thou givest me thy daughter I will take her,” replied the King’s
son, “but nought else will I take from thy hand.”
“My son,” groaned the Padishah, “I will give thee my eldest daughter,
I’ll give thee my second daughter, nay, I’ll give thee the pair of them
if thou wilt. But my youngest daughter has a deadly enemy, the
Wind-Demon. Because I would not give her to him, I must needs fence her
room about with walls of steel, lest any of the devil race draw near to
her. For the Wind-Demon is such a terrible monster that eye cannot see
nor dart overtake him; like the tempest he flies, and his coming is like
the coming of a whirlwind.”
But whatever the Padishah might say to turn him from seeking after the
damsel fell on deaf ears. He begged and pleaded so hard for the damsel
that the Padishah was wearied by his much speaking, and promised him the
damsel, nay they held the bridal banquet. The two elder brothers
received the two elder damsels, and returned to their kingdom, but the
youngest brother remained behind to guard his wife against the
Wind-Demon.
Time came and went, and the King’s son avoided the light of day for the
sake of his lovely Sultana. One day, however, the King’s son said to his
wife: “Behold now, my Sultana, all this time I have never moved from thy
side, methinks I will go a-hunting, though it only be for a little hour
or so.”
“Alas! my King,” replied his wife, “if thou dost depart from me, I know
that thou wilt never see me more.” But as he begged her for leave again
and again, and promised to be back again immediately, his wife
consented. Then he took his weapons and went forth into the forest.
Now the Wind-Demon had been awaiting this chance all along. He feared
the famous prince, and durst not snatch his wife from his arms; but as
soon as ever the King’s son had put his foot out of doors, the
Wind-Demon came in and vanished with the wife of the King’s son.
Not very long afterwards the King’s son came back, and could find his
wife nowhere. He went to the Padishah to seek her, and came back again,
for it was certain that the Demon must have taken her, no other living
soul could have got near her. Bitterly did he weep, fiercely did he dash
himself against the floor, but then he quickly rose up again, took
horse, and galloped away into the wide world, determined to find either
death or his consort.
He went on for days, he went on for weeks, in his trouble and anguish he
gave himself no rest. All at once a palace sprang up before him, but it
seemed to him like a mirage, which baffles the eye that looks upon it.
It was the palace of his eldest sister. The damsel was just then looking
out of the window, and lo! she caught sight of a man wandering there
where never a bird had flown and never a caravan had travelled. Then she
recognized him as her brother, and so great was their mutual joy that
they could not come to words for hugging and kissing.
Towards evening the damsel said to the King’s son: “The lion will be
here shortly, and although he is very good to me, he is only a brute
beast for all that, and may do thee a mischief.” And she took her
brother and hid him.
[Illustration: The King’s Son and the Lion.--p. 121.]
In the evening the lion came home sure enough, and when they had sat
down together and begun to talk, the girl asked him what he would do if
any of her brothers should chance to come there. “If the eldest were to
come,” said the lion, “I would strike him dead with one blow, if the
second came I would slay him also, but if the youngest came, I would let
him go to sleep on my paws if he liked.”
“Then he has come,” said his wife.
“Where is he--where is he? Bring him out, let me see him!” cried the
lion; and when the King’s son appeared, the lion did not know what to do
with himself for joy. Then they began to talk, and the lion asked him
why he had come there, and whither he was going. The youth told him what
had happened, and said he was going to seek the Wind-Demon.
“I know but the rumour of him,” said the lion; “but take my word for it,
thou hadst better have nothing to do with him, for there is none that
can cope with the Wind-Demon.” But the King’s son would not listen to
reason, remained there that night, and next morning mounted his horse
again. The lion accompanied him to show him the right way, and then they
parted, one going to the right and the other to the left.
Again he went on and on, till he saw another palace, and this was the
palace of his middling sister. The damsel saw from the window that a
man was on the road, and no sooner did she recognize him than she rushed
out to meet him, and led him into the palace. Full of joy, they
conversed together till the evening, and then the damsel said to the
youth: “In a short time my tiger-husband will be here, I’ll hide thee
from him, lest a mischief befall thee,” and she took her brother and hid
him.
In the evening the tiger came home, and while they talked together his
wife asked him what he would do if any of her brothers should chance to
look in upon them.
“If the elder were to come,” said the tiger, “I would strike them dead,
but if the youngest came, I would go down on my knees before him.”
Whereupon the damsel called to her youngest brother, the King’s son, to
come forth. The tiger was overjoyed to see him, welcomed him as a
brother, and asked him whence he came and whither he was going. Then the
King’s son told the tiger of all his trouble, and asked him whether he
knew the Wind-Demon. “Only by hearsay,” replied the tiger; and then he
tried to persuade the King’s son not to go, for the danger was great.
But the red dawn had no sooner appeared than the King’s son was ready to
set out again. The tiger showed him the way, and the one went back and
the other went forward.
He pursued his way, and it was endlessly long, but time passes quickly
in a fairy tale, and at last a dark object stood out against him. “What
can it be?” thought he, but when he drew nearer he saw that it was a
palace. It was the abode of his youngest sister. The damsel was just
then looking out of the window. “Alas! my brother!” cried she, and very
nearly fell out of the window for pure joy. Then she led him into the
house. The youth rejoiced that he had found all his sisters so well, but
the lack of his wife was still a weight upon his heart.
Now when evening was drawing nigh the girl said to her brother: “My
bird-husband will be here anon; conceal thyself from him, for if he see
thee he will tear thy heart out,” and with that she took her brother and
hid him.
And now there was a great clapping of wings, and the Anka had scarce
rested a while when his wife asked him what he would do if any of her
brothers came to see them.
“As to the two elder,” said the bird, “I would take them in my mouth,
fly up to the sky with them, and cast them down from thence; but if the
youngest were to come, I would let him sit down on my wings and go to
sleep there if he liked.” Then the girl called forth her youngest
brother.
“Alas! my dear little child,” cried the bird, “how didst thou find thy
way hither? Wert thou not afraid of the long journey?”
The youth told what had happened to him, and asked the Anka whether he
could help him to get to the Wind-Demon.
“It is no easy matter,” said the bird; “but even if thou couldst get to
him, I would counsel thee to let it alone and stay rather among us.”
“Not I,” replied the resolute youth; “I will either release my wife or
perish there!” Then the Anka saw that he could not turn him from his
purpose, and began to explain to him all about the palace of the
Wind-Demon. “He is now asleep,” said the Anka, “and thou mayest be able
to carry off thy wife; but if he should awake and see thee, he will
without doubt grind thee to atoms. Guard against him thou cannot, for
eye cannot see and fire cannot harm him, so look well to thyself!”
So next day the youth set out on his journey, and when he had gone on
and on for a long, long time, he saw before him a vast palace that had
neither door nor chimney, nor length nor breadth. It was the palace of
the Wind-Demon. His wife chanced just then to be sitting at the window,
and when she saw her husband she leaped clean out of the window to him.
The King’s son caught his wife in his arms, and there were no bounds to
their joy and their tears, till at last the girl bethought her of the
terrible demon.
“This is now the third day that he has slept,” cried she; “let us hasten
away before the fourth day is spent also.” So they mounted, whipped up
their horses, and were already well on their way when the Wind-Demon
awoke on the fourth day. Then he went to the girl’s door and bade her
open, that he might at least see her face for a brief moment. He waited,
but he got no answer. Then, auguring some evil, he beat in the door, and
lo! the place where the damsel should have lain was cold.
“So-ho, Prince Mehmed!” cried he, “thou hast come here, eh, and stolen
away my Sultana? Well, wait a while! go thy way, whip up thy fleet
steed! for I’ll catch thee up in the long run.” And with that he sat
down at his ease, drank his coffee, smoked his chibook, and then rose up
and went after them.
Meanwhile the King’s son was galloping off with the girl with all his
might, when all at once the girl felt the demon’s breath, and cried out
in her terror: “Alas, my King, the Wind-Demon is here!” Like a whirlwind
the invisible monster was upon them, caught up the youth, tore off his
arms and legs, and smashed his skull and all his bones till there was
not a bit of him left.
The damsel began to weep bitterly. “Even if thou hast killed him,”
sobbed she, “let me at least gather together his bones and pile them up
somewhere, for if thou suffer it, I would fain bury him.”--“I care not
what thou dost with his bones!” cried the Demon.
So the damsel took the bones of the King’s son, piled them up together,
kissed the horse between the eyes, placed the bones on his saddle, and
whispered in his ear: “Take these bones, my good steed, take them to the
proper place.” Then the Demon took the girl and led her back to the
palace, for the power of her beauty was so great that it always kept the
Demon close to her. Into her presence, indeed, she never suffered the
monster to come. At the door of her chamber he had to stop, but he was
allowed to show himself to her now and then.
Meanwhile the good steed galloped away with the youth’s bones till he
stopped at the door of the palace of the youngest sister, and then he
neighed and neighed till the damsel heard him. She rushed out to the
horse, and when she perceived the knapsack, and in the knapsack the
bones of her brother, she began to weep bitterly, and dashed herself
against the ground as if she would have dashed herself to pieces. She
could hardly wait for her lord the Anka to come home. At last there was
a sound of mighty wings, and the Padishah of the Birds, the emerald
Anka, came home, and when he saw the scattered bones of the King’s son
in the basket, he called together all the birds of the air and asked
them, saying: “Which of you goes to the Garden of Paradise?”
“An old owl is the only one that goes there,” said the birds, “and he
has now grown so old that he has no more strength left for such a
journey.”
Then the Anka sent a bird to bring the owl on his back. The bird flew
away, and in a very short time was back again, with the aged owl on his
back.
“Well, my father,” said the Bird-Padishah, “hast thou ever been in the
Garden of Paradise?”
“Yes, my little son,” croaked the aged owl, “a long, long time ago,
twelve years or more, and I haven’t been there since.”
“Well, if thou hast been there,” said the Anka, “go again now, and bring
me from thence a little glass of water.” The old owl kept on saying that
it was a long, long way for him to go, and that he would never be able
to hold out the whole way. The Anka would not listen to him, but perched
him upon a bird’s back, and the twain flew into the Garden of Paradise,
drew a glass of water, and returned to the Anka’s palace.
Then the Anka took the youth’s bones and began to put them together. The
arms, the legs, the head, the thighs, everything he put in its proper
place; and when he had sprinkled it all with the water, the youth fell
a-gaping, as if he had been asleep and was just coming to himself again.
The youth looked all about him, and asked the Anka where he was, and how
he came there.
“Didn’t I say that the Wind-Demon would twist thee round his little
finger?” replied the Anka. “He ground all thy bones and sinews to dust,
and we have only just now picked them all out of the basket. But now
thou hadst better leave the matter alone, for if thou gettest once more
into the clutches of this demon, I know that we shall never be able to
put thee together again.”
But the youth was not content to do this, but said he would go seek his
consort a second time.
“Well, if thou art bent on going at any price,” counselled the Anka, “go
first to thy wife and ask her if she knows the Demon’s talisman. If only
thou canst get hold of that, even the Wind-Demon will be in thy power.”
So again the King’s son took horse, again he went right up to the
Demon’s palace, and as the Demon was dreaming dreams just then, the
youth was able to find and converse with his wife. After they had
rejoiced with a great joy at the sight of each other, the youth told the
lady to discover the secret of the Demon’s talisman, and win it by
wheedling words and soft caresses if she could get at it no other way.
Meanwhile the youth hid himself in the neighbouring mountain, and there
awaited the good news.
When the Wind-Demon awoke from his forty days’ sleep he again presented
himself at the damsel’s door. “Depart from before my eyes,” cried the
girl. “Here hast thou been doing nothing but sleep these forty days, so
that life has been a loathsome thing to me all the while.”
The Demon rejoiced that he was allowed to be in the room along with the
damsel, and in his happiness asked her what he should give her to help
her to while away the time.
“What canst thou give me,” said the girl, “seeing that thou thyself art
but wind? Now if at least thou hadst a talisman, that, at any rate,
would be something to while away the time with.”
“Alas! my Sultana,” replied the Demon, “my talisman is far away, in the
uttermost ends of the earth, and one cannot fetch it hither in a little
instant. If only we had some such brave man as thy Mehmed was, he
perhaps might be able to go for it.”
The damsel was now more curious than ever about the talisman, and she
coaxed and coaxed till at last she persuaded the Demon to tell her about
the talisman, but not till she had granted his request that he might sit
down quite close to her. The damsel could not refuse him that happiness,
so he sat down beside her, and breathed into her ear the secret of the
talisman.
“On the surface of the seventh layer of sea,” began the Demon, “there is
an island, on that island an ox is grazing, in the belly of that ox
there is a golden cage, and in that cage there is a white dove. That
little dove is my talisman.”
“But how can one get to that island?” inquired the Sultana.
“I’ll tell thee,” said the Demon. “Opposite to the palace of the emerald
Anka is a huge mountain, and on the top of that mountain is a spring.
Every morning forty sea-horses come to drink at that spring. If any one
can be found to catch one of these horses by the leg (but only while he
is drinking the water), bridle him, saddle him, and then leap on his
back, he will be able to go wherever he likes. The sea-horse will say to
him: ‘What dost thou command, my sweet master?’ and will carry him
whithersoever he bids him.”
“What good will the talisman be to me if I cannot get near it?” said the
girl. With that she drove the Demon from the room, and when the time of
his slumber arrived, she hastened with the news to her lord. Then the
King’s son made great haste, leaped on his horse, hastened to the palace
of his youngest sister, and told the matter to the Anka.
Early next morning the Anka arose, called five birds, and said to them:
“Lead the King’s son to the spring on the mountain beyond, and wait
there till the sea-horses come up. Forty steeds will appear by the
running water, and when they begin to drink, seize one of them, bridle
and saddle it, and put the King’s son on its back.”
So the birds took the King’s son, carried him up to the mountain close
by the spring, and as soon as the horses came up, they did to one of
them what the Anka had said. The King’s son sat on the horse’s back
forthwith, and the first thing the good steed said was: “What dost thou
command, my sweet master?”
“There is an island on the surface of the seventh ocean,” cried the
King’s son, “there should I like to be!” And the King’s son had flown
away before you could shut your eyes; and before you could open them
again, there he was on the shore of that island.
He dismounted from his horse, took off the bridle, stuck it in his
pocket, and went off to seek the ox. As he was walking up and down the
shore a Jew met him, and asked him what had brought him there.
“I have suffered shipwreck,” replied the youth. “My ship and everything
I possess have perished, and only with difficulty did I swim ashore.”
“As for me,” said the Jew, “I am in the service of the Wind-Demon. Thou
must know that there is an ox on this island, and I must watch it night
and day. Wouldst thou like to enter the service? Thou wilt have nothing
else to do all day but watch this beast.”
The King’s son took advantage of the opportunity, and could scarce await
the moment when he was to see the ox. At watering-time the Jew brought
it along, and no sooner did he find himself alone with the beast than he
cut open its belly, took out the golden cage, and hastened with it to
the sea-shore. Then he drew the bridle from his pocket, and when he had
struck the sea with it, the steed immediately appeared and cried: “What
dost thou command, sweet master?”--“I desire to be taken to the palace
of the Wind-Demon,” cried the youth.
Shut your eyes, open your eyes--and there they were before the palace.
Then he took his wife, made her sit down beside him, and when the steed
said: “What dost thou command, sweet master?” he bade it fly straight to
the emerald Anka.
Away with them flew the steed. It flew right up to the very clouds, and
as they were approaching the Anka’s palace the Demon awoke from his
sleep. He saw that his wife had again disappeared, and immediately set
off in pursuit. Already the Sultana felt the breath of the Demon, and he
had all but overtaken them when the steed hastily bade them twist the
neck of the white dove in the cage. They had barely time to do so, when
the Wind died away and the Demon was destroyed.
With great joy they arrived at the Anka’s palace, let the horse go his
way, and rested themselves awhile. On the next day they went to their
second brother, and on the third day to their third brother, and it was
only then that the King’s son discovered that his lion brother-in-law
was the King of the Lions, and his tiger brother-in-law the King of the
Tigers. At last they reached their home which was the domain of the
damsel’s. Here they made a great banquet, and rejoiced their hearts for
forty days and forty nights, after which they arose and went to the
prince’s own empire. There he showed them the tongue of the dragon and
its nose, and as he had thus fulfilled the wishes of his father, they
chose him to be their Padishah; and their lives were full of joy till
the day of their death, and their end was a happy one.
THE CROW-PERI
Once upon a time that was no time there was a man who had one son. This
man used to go out into the forest all day, and catch birds for sale to
the first comer. At last, however, the father died and the son was left
all alone. Now he did not know what had been his fathers profession, but
while he was searching all about the floor he came upon the
fowling-snare. So he took it, went out into the forest, and set the
snare on a tree. At that moment a crow flew down upon the tree, but as
the snare was cunningly laid the poor bird was caught. The youth climbed
up after it, but when he had got hold of the bird, the crow began
begging him to let her go, promising to give him in exchange something
more beautiful and more precious than herself. The crow begged and
prayed till at last he let her go free, and again he set the snare in
the tree and sat down at the foot of it to wait. Presently another bird
came flying up, and flew right into the snare. The youth climbed up the
tree again to bring it down, but when he saw it he was full of
amazement, for such a beautiful thing he had never seen in the forest
before.
While he was still gazing at it and chuckling, the crow again appeared
to him and said: “Take that bird to the Padishah, and he will buy it
from thee.” So the youth took away the bird, put it in a cage, and
carried it to the palace. When the Padishah saw the beautiful little
creature he was filled with joy, and gave the youth so much money for it
that he did not know what to do with it all. But the bird they placed in
a golden cage, and the Padishah had his joy of it day and night.
Now the Padishah had a favourite who was grievously jealous of the good
fortune of the youth who had brought the bird, and kept cudgelling his
brains how he could get him beneath his feet. At last he hit upon a
plan, and going in to the Padishah one day he said: “How happy that bird
would be if only he had an ivory palace to dwell in!”
“Yes,” replied the Padishah, “but whence could I get enough ivory to
make him a palace?”
“He who brought the bird hither,” said the favourite, “will certainly be
able to find the ivory.”
So the Padishah sent for the little fowler, and bade him make an ivory
palace for the bird there and then. “I know thou canst get the ivory,”
said the Padishah.
“Alas, my lord Padishah!” lamented the youth, “whence am I to get all
this ivory from?”
“That is thy business,” replied the Padishah. “Thou mayest search for it
for forty days, but if it is not here by that time thy head shall be
where now thy feet are.”
The youth was sore troubled, and while he was still pondering in his
mind which road he should take, the crow came flying up to him, and
asked him what he was grieving about so much. Then the youth told her
what a great trouble that one little bird had brought down upon his
head.
“Why this is nothing at all to fret about,” said the crow; “but go to
the Padishah, and ask him for forty wagon-loads of wine!” So the youth
returned to the palace, got all that quantity of wine, and as he was
coming back with the cars, the crow flew up and said: “Hard by is a
forest, on the border of which are forty large trenches, and as many
elephants as there are in the wide world come to drink out of these
trenches. Go now and fill them with wine instead of water. The elephants
will thus get drunk and tumble down, and thou wilt be able to pull out
their teeth and take them to the Padishah.”
The youth did as the bird said, crammed his cars full of elephants’
tusks instead of wine, and returned with them to the palace. The
Padishah rejoiced greatly at the sight of all the ivory, had the palace
built, rewarded the little fowler with rich gifts, and sent him home.
So there was the sparkling bird in his ivory palace, and right merrily
did he hop about from perch to perch, but he could never be got to sing.
“Ah!” said the evil counsellor, “if only his master were here he would
sing of his own accord.”
“Who knows who his master is, or where he is to be found?” asked the
Padishah sadly.
“He who fetched the elephants’ tusks could fetch the bird’s master
also,” replied the evil counsellor.
So the Padishah sent for the little fowler once more, and commanded him
to bring the bird’s master before him.
“How can I tell who his master is, when I caught him by chance in the
forest?” asked the fowler.
“That is thy look-out,” said the Padishah; “but if thou find him not I
will slay thee. I give thee forty days for thy quest, and let that
suffice thee.”
So the youth went home, and sobbed aloud in his despair, when lo! the
crow came flying up and asked him what he was crying for.
“Why should I not cry?” said the poor youth, and with that he began to
tell the crow of his new trouble.--“Nay, but ’tis a shame to weep for
such a trifle,” said the crow. “Go quickly now to the King and ask him
for a large ship, but it must be large enough to hold forty
maidservants, a beautiful garden also, and a bath-house.” So the youth
returned to the King and told him what he wanted for his journey.
The ship was prepared as he had desired it, the youth embarked, and was
just thinking whether he should go to the left or the right, when the
crow came flying up, and said to him: “Steer thy ship always to the
right, and go straight on until thou perceive a huge mountain. At the
foot of this mountain dwell forty Peris, and when they perceive thy ship
they will feel a strong desire to look at everything on board of it. But
thou must allow only their Queen to come on board, for she is the owner
of the bird, and while thou art showing her the ship, set sail and never
stop till thou reach home.”
So the youth went on board the ship, steered steadily to the right, and
never stopped once till he came to the mountain. There the forty Peris
were walking on the sea-shore, and when they saw the ship they all came
rushing up that they might examine the beautiful thing. The Queen of the
Peris asked the little fowler whether he would not show her the ship,
especially the inside of it, and he took her off in a little skiff and
brought her to the vessel.
The Peri was monstrously delighted with the beautiful ship, walked in
the garden with the damsels on board the ship, and when she saw the
bath-room she said to the waiting-maids: “If I have come so far, I may
as well have a bath into the bargain.” With that she stepped into the
bath-room, and while she was bathing the ship went off.
They had gone a good distance across the sea before the Peri had
finished her bathing. The Peri made haste, for it was now growing late,
but when she stepped upon the deck she saw nothing but the sea around
her. At this she fell a-weeping bitterly. What would become of her? she
said; whither was she going? into whose hands was she about to fall? But
the youth comforted her with the assurance that she was going to a
King’s palace, and would be among good people.
Not very long afterwards they arrived in the city, and sent word to the
King that the ship had come back. Then he brought the Peri to the
palace, and as she passed by the ivory palace of the bird, it began to
sing so beautifully that all who heard it were beside themselves for
joy. The Peri was a little comforted when she heard it, but the King was
filled with rapture, and he loved the beautiful Peri so fondly that he
could not be a single moment without her. The wedding-banquet quickly
followed, and with the beauteous Peri on his right hand, and the
sparkling bird on his left, there was not a happier man in the world
than that Padishah. But the poison of envy devoured the soul of the evil
counsellor.
One day, however, the Sultana suddenly fell ill, and took to her bed.
Every remedy was tried in vain, but the sages said that nothing could
cure her but the drug which she had left behind her in her own fairy
palace. Then, by the advice of the evil counsellor, the young fowler was
again sent for to the palace, and commanded to go and seek for the drug.
So the good youth embarked on his ship again, and was just about to sail
when the crow came to him and asked him whither he was going. The youth
told her that the Sultana was ill, and he had been sent to fetch the
drug from the fairy palace. “Well then, go!” said the crow, “and thou
wilt find the palace behind a mountain. Two lions stand in the gates,
but take this feather and touch their mouths with it, and they will not
lift so much as a claw against thee.”
The youth took the feather, arrived in front of the mountain,
disembarked, and quickly beheld the palace. He went straight up to the
gates, and there stood the two lions. He took out his feather, and no
sooner had he touched their mouths than they lay down one on each side
and let him go into the palace. The Peris about the palace also saw the
youth, and immediately guessed that their Queen was ill. So they gave
him the drug, and immediately he took ship again, and returned to the
palace of the Padishah. But the moment he entered the Peri’s chamber
with the drug in his hand, the crow alighted on his shoulder, and thus
they went together to the sick Sultana’s bed.
The Sultana was already in the throes of death, but no sooner had she
tasted of the healing drug than she seemed to return to life again at a
single bound. She opened her eyes, gazed upon the little fowler, and
perceiving the crow upon his shoulder thus addressed her: “Oh, thou
sooty slave! art thou not sorry for all that this good youth hath
suffered for my sake?” Then the Sultana told her lord that this same
crow was her serving-maid, whom, for negligence in her service, she had
changed into a crow. “Nevertheless,” she added, “I now forgive her, for
I see that her intentions towards me were good.”
At these words the crow trembled all over, and immediately a damsel so
lovely stood before the young fowler that there was really very little
difference between her and the Queen of the Peris. At the petition of
the Sultana, the Sultan married the youth to the Crow-Peri, the
evil-minded counsellor was banished, and the fowler became Vizier in his
stead. And their happiness lasted till death.
THE FORTY PRINCES AND THE SEVEN-HEADED DRAGON
There was once upon a time a Padishah, and this Padishah had forty sons.
All day long they disported themselves in the forest, snaring birds and
hunting beasts, but when the youngest of them was fourteen years old
their father wished to marry them. So he sent for them all and told them
his desire. “We will marry,” said the forty brothers, “but only when we
find forty sisters who are the daughters of the same father and the same
mother.” Then the Padishah searched the whole realm through to find
forty such sisters, but though he found families of thirty-nine sisters,
families of forty sisters he could never find.
“Let the fortieth of you take another wife,” said the Padishah to his
sons. But the forty brothers would not agree thereto, and they begged
their father to allow them to go and search if haply they might find
what they wanted in another empire. What could the Padishah do? He could
not refuse them their request, so he gave them his permission. But
before they departed he summoned them into his presence, and this is
what their father the Padishah said to them: “I have three things to say
to you, which bear ye well in mind. When ye come in your journey to a
large spring, take heed not to pass the night near it. Beyond the spring
is a caravanserai; there also ye must not abide. Beyond the caravanserai
is a vast desert; and there also ye must not take a moment’s rest.” The
sons promised their father that they would keep his words, and with
baggage light of weight but exceedingly precious, they took horse and
set out on their journey.
They went on and on, they smoked their chibooks and drank forty cups of
coffee, and when evening descended the large spring was right before
them. “Verily,” began the elder brethren, “we will not go another step
further. We are weary, and the night is upon us, and what need forty men
fear?” And with that they dismounted from their horses, ate their
suppers, and laid them down to rest. Only the youngest brother, who was
fourteen years of age, remained awake.
It might have been near midnight when the youth heard a strange noise.
He caught up his arms, and turning in the direction of the sound saw
before him a seven-headed dragon. They rushed towards each other, and
thrice the dragon fell upon the prince, but could do him no harm. “Well,
now it is my turn,” cried the youth; “wilt thou be converted to the true
faith?” and with these words he struck the monster such a blow that six
of his seven heads came flying down.
“Strike me once more,” groaned the dragon.
“Not I,” replied the youth, “I myself only came into the world once.”
Immediately the dragon fell to pieces, but his one remaining head began
to roll and roll and roll till it stood on the brink of the well.
“Whoever can take my soul out of this well,” it said, “shall have my
treasure also,” and with these words the head bounded into the well.
The youth took a rope, fastened one end of it to a rock, and seizing the
other end himself, lowered himself into the well. At the bottom of the
well he found an iron door. He opened it, passed through, and there
right before him stood a palace compared with which his father’s palace
was a hovel. Into this palace he went, and in it were forty rooms, and
in each room was a damsel sitting by her embroidery frame with enormous
treasures behind her. “Art thou a man or a spirit?” cried the terrified
damsels.--“A man am I, and the son of a man,” replied the prince. “I
have just slain a seven-headed dragon, and have followed its rolling
head hither.”
Oh, how the forty damsels rejoiced at hearing these words. They embraced
the youth, and begged and prayed him not to leave them there. They were
the children of one father and one mother they said. The dragon had
killed their parents and carried them off, and they had nobody to look
to in the whole wide world.
“We also are forty,” said the youth, “and we are seeking forty damsels.”
Then he told them that he would first of all ascend to his brethren, and
then he would come for them again. So he ascended out of the well, went
to the spring, lay down beside it and fell asleep.
Early in the morning the forty brothers arose and laughed at their
father for trying to frighten them with the well. Again they set out on
their way, and went on and on till evening overtook them, when they
perceived a caravanserai before them. “Not a step further will we go,”
said the elder brothers. The youngest brother indeed insisted that it
would be well to remember their father’s words, for his speech could
surely not have been in vain. But they laughed at their youngest
brother, ate and drank, said their prayers, and lay down to sleep. Only
the youngest brother remained wide awake.
About midnight he again heard a noise. The youth snatched up his arms,
and again he saw before him a seven-headed dragon, but much larger than
the former one. The dragon rushed at him first of all, but could not
overcome him, then the youth dealt him one blow and off went six of the
dragon’s heads. Then the dragon wished him to take one more blow but he
would not; the head rolled into a well, the youth went after it, and
came upon a palace larger than the former one, and with ever so much
more treasures and precious things in it. He marked the well so that he
should know it again, returned to his brothers, and wearied out with his
great combat slept so soundly that his brothers had to wake him up with
blows next morning.
Again they arose, took horse, went up hill and down dale, and just as
the sun was setting, behold! a vast desert stood before them. They fell
to eating straightway, drank their fill also, and were just going to lie
down to sleep when all at once such a roaring, such a bellowing arose
that the very mountains fell down from their places.
The princes were horribly afraid, especially when they saw coming
against them a gigantic seven-headed dragon. He vomited forth venomous
fire in his wrath, and roared furiously: “Who killed my two brothers?
Hither with him! I’ll try conclusions with him also!”
The youngest brother saw that his brethren were more dead than alive
from fear, so he gave them the keys of the two wells, in one of which
was the vast heap of treasure, and in the other the forty damsels. Let
them take everything home, he said; as for himself he must first slay
the dragon and then he would follow after them. The thirty-nine brothers
lost no time in mounting their horses and galloping off. They drew the
treasure out of one well and the forty damsels out of the other, and so
returned home to their father. But now we will see what happened to the
youngest brother.
He fought the dragon and the dragon fought him, but neither could get
the better of the other. The dragon perceived that it was vain to try
and vanquish the youth, so he said to him: “If thou wilt go to the
Empire of Chin-i-Machin[12] and fetch me thence the Padishah’s daughter,
I will not worry the life out of thee.” To this the prince readily
agreed, for he could not have sustained the conflict much longer.
Then Champalak, for that was the dragon’s name, gave the prince a bridle
and said to him: “A good steed comes hither to feed every day, seize
him, put this bridle in his mouth, and bid him take thee to the Empire
of Chin-i-Machin!” So the youth took the bridle and waited for the good
charger. Presently a golden-maned charger came flying through the air,
and the moment the prince had put the bridle in its mouth, the charger
said: “What dost thou command, little Sultan?” and before you could wink
your eyes, the Empire of Chin-i-Machin stood before him. Then he
dismounted from his horse, took off the bridle, and went into the town.
There he entered into an old woman’s hut and asked her whether she
received guests. “Willingly,” answered the old woman. Then she made
ready a place for him, and while he was sipping his coffee he asked her
all about the talk of the town. “Well,” said the old woman, “a
seven-headed dragon is very much in love with our Sultan’s daughter. A
war has been raging between them on that account these many years, and
the monster presses us so hardly that not even a bird can fly into our
realm.”
“Then where is the Sultan’s daughter?” asked the youth.--“In a little
palace in the Padishah’s garden,” replied the old woman, “and the poor
thing dare not put her foot outside it.”
The next day the youth went to the Padishah’s garden, and asked the
gardener to take him as a servant, and he begged and prayed till the
gardener had not the heart to refuse him. “Very well, I will take thee,”
said he, “and thou wilt have nought to do but water the flowers of the
garden.”
Now the Sultan’s daughter saw the youth, called him to her window, and
asked him how he had managed to reach that realm. Then the youth told
her that his father was a Padishah, that he had fought with the dragon
Champalak on his travels, and had promised to bring him the Sultan’s
daughter. “Yet fear thou nothing,” added the youth, “my love is stronger
than the love of the serpent, and if thou wilt only have the courage to
come with me, trust me to find a way of disposing of him.”
The damsel was so much in love with the prince, and so eager to escape
from her captivity, that she consented to trust herself to him, and one
night they escaped from her palace and went straight towards the desert
where dwelt the dragon Champalak. They agreed on the way that the girl
should find out what the dragon’s talisman was, that they might destroy
him that way if they could do it no other.
Imagine the joy of Champalak when he perceived the princess! “What joy,
what rapture, that thou hast come!” cried Champalak; but fondle her and
caress her as he might, the damsel did nothing but weep. Days passed by,
weeks passed by, and yet the tears never left the damsel’s eyes. “Tell
me at least what thy talisman is,” said the damsel to him one day, “if
thou wouldst see me happy and not wretched with thee all thy days.”
“Alas, my soul!” said the dragon, “my talisman is guarded in a place
whither it is impossible ever to come. It is in a large palace in a
neighbouring realm, and though one may venture thither for it, no one
has ever been able to get back again.”
The prince needed no more, that was quite good enough for him. He took
his bridle, went with it to the sea-shore, and summoned his golden-maned
steed. “What dost thou command me, little Sultan?” said the steed. “I
desire thee to convey me to the neighbouring realm, to the palace of the
talisman of the dragon Champalak,” cried the youth--and in no more time
than it takes to wink an eye, the palace stood before him.
Then the steed said to the youth: “When we reach the palace thou wilt
tie the bridle to two iron gates, and when I neigh once and strike my
iron hoofs together, a door will open. In this open door thou wilt see a
lion’s throat, and if thou canst not kill that lion at one stroke,
escape, or thou art a dead man.” With that they went up to the palace,
he tied the horse to the two iron gates by his bridle, and when he
neighed the door flew open. The youth struck with all his might at the
gaping throat of the lion in the doorway and split it right in two. Then
he cut open the lion’s belly, and drew out of it a little gold cage with
three doves in it, so beautiful that the like of them is not to be
found in the wide world. He took one of them and began softly stroking
and caressing it, when all at once--pr-r-r-r!--away it flew out of his
hand. The steed galloped swiftly after it, and if he had not caught it
and wrung its neck it would have gone hard with the good youth.
Then he mounted his steed again, and in the twinkling of an eye he stood
once more before Champalak’s palace. In the gateway of the palace he
killed the second dove, so that when the youth entered the dragon’s
room, there the monster lay quite helpless, and there was no more spirit
in him at all. When he saw the dove in the youth’s hand he implored him
to let him stroke it for the last time before he died. The youth’s heart
felt for him, and he was just about to hand the bird to him when the
princess rushed out, snatched the dove from his hand, and killed it,
whereupon the dragon expired before their very eyes. “‘Twas well for
thee,” said the steed, “that thou didst not give him the dove, for if he
had got it, fresh life would have flowed into him.” And with that the
steed disappeared, bridle and all.
Then they got together the dragon’s treasures, and went with them to the
Empire of Chin-i-Machin. The Padishah was sick for grief at the loss of
the damsel, and after searching for her in all parts of the kingdom in
vain, was persuaded that she had fallen into the hands of the dragon.
And lo! there she stood before him now, hand in hand with the King’s
son. Then there was such a marriage-feast in that city that it seemed as
if there was no end to it. After the marriage they set out on their
journey again, and travelled with a great escort of soldiers to the
prince’s father. There they had long held the King’s son to be dead, and
would not believe that it was he even now till he had told them the tale
of the three seven-headed dragons and the forty damsels.
The fortieth damsel was waiting patiently for him there, and the prince
said to his wife: “Behold now my second bride!”--“Thou didst save my
life from the dragon,” replied the Princess of Chin-i-Machin, “I
therefore give her to thee, do as thou wilt with her!” So they made a
marriage-feast for the second bride also, and they spent half their days
in the Empire of the prince’s father, and the other half in the Empire
of Chin-i-Machin, and their lives flowed away in happiness.
THE WORLD’S MOST BEAUTEOUS DAMSEL
There was once upon a time a Padishah who had an only son. His father
guarded him as the apple of his eye, and there was not a desire of his
heart that was not instantly gratified.
One night a dervish appeared to the King’s son in a dream, and showed
him the World’s most beauteous Damsel, and there he drained with her the
cup of love. After that the prince became another man. He could neither
eat nor drink. Sleep brought him neither pleasure nor refreshment, and
he all at once grew sallow and withered. They sent for doctor after
doctor, they sent for wizard after wizard, but they could not tell the
nature of the malady or find a cure for it.
Then the sick prince said to his father: “My lord Padishah and father,
no leech, no wise man can help me, wherefore weary them in vain? The
World’s most beauteous Damsel is the cause of my complaint, and she will
be either the life or the death of me.”
The Padishah was frightened at the words of his son, and his chief care
was to drive the damsel out of the lad’s head. “‘Tis dangerous to even
think of such a thing,” said he, “for her love will be thy death.” But
his son continued to pine away daily, and life had no joy for him. Again
and again the father begged his son to tell him his heart’s desire and
it should be instantly fulfilled, and the eternal reply of the son was:
“Let me seek the World’s most beauteous Damsel.” Then the Padishah
thought to himself: “If I do not let him go he will only perish, and he
cannot therefore be worse off if he goes.” Then said he: “Go, my son,
after thy love, and may the righteous Allah be merciful to thee.”
So the next day the prince set out on his journey. He went up hill and
down dale, he crossed vast deserts, he traversed rugged wildernesses in
search of his beloved, the World’s most beauteous Damsel. On and on he
went, till he came at last to the sea-shore, and there he saw a poor
little fish writhing in the sand, and the fish besought him to throw it
back into the sea again. The youth had compassion upon the fish, and
threw it back into the sea again. Then the little fish gave him three
scales, and said to him: “If ever thou dost get into any trouble, burn
these scales.”
Again the youth went on his way till he came to a vast desert, and
there on the ground in front of him he saw a lame ant. The little
creature told him that he was going to a wedding, but could not overtake
his comrades because they hastened so quickly. Then the youth took up
the ant and carried him to his comrades. As they parted the ant gave him
a little piece of its wing and said: “If ever thou shouldst get into any
trouble, burn this bit of wing.”
Again the youth followed his road, full of weary woefulness, and
reaching the borders of a large forest he there saw a little bird
struggling with a large serpent. The little bird asked help of the
youth, and with one blow he cut the serpent in two. The bird then gave
him three feathers. “If ever thou shouldst get into trouble,” it said,
“burn these little feathers.”
Again he took up his pilgrim’s staff and went beyond the mountains,
beyond the sea, till he came to a large city. It was the realm of the
father of the World’s most beauteous Damsel. He went straight into the
palace to the Padishah, and begged the hand of his daughter in the name
of Allah. “Nay,” said the Padishah, “thou must first of all accomplish
three tasks for me. Only after that canst thou make known thy wishes to
my daughter.”
With that he took a ring, cast it into the sea, and said to the King’s
son: “If thou canst not find it for me in three days, thou art a dead
man.” Then the King’s son fell a-thinking till he bethought him of the
three scales, and he had no sooner burnt them than the little fish stood
before him and said: “What dost thou command, O my Sultan?”--“The ring
of the World’s most beauteous Damsel hath been cast into the sea, and I
want it back again,” said the prince. Then the fish sought for the ring
but couldn’t find it; it dived down a second time and still it couldn’t
find it; a third time it descended right down into the seventh ocean,
drew up a fish, cut it open, and there was the ring. So the youth gave
the ring to the Padishah, and the Padishah gave it to his daughter.
Now there was a cave near the palace full of gravel and grain. “My
second task,” said the Padishah, “is that thou dost separate the grain
from the gravel.” Then the youth entered the cave, took out the ant’s
wing and burned it, whereupon the whole cave was swarming with ants, and
they set to work upon the grain in hot haste. The day was now nearly
over, and the same evening the youth sent word to the Padishah that the
second task also was accomplished.
“The third task still remains,” said the Padishah, “and then thou mayest
have my daughter.” With that he sent for a maid-servant, had her head
cut off straightway, and then said to the youth: “Thus shall be done to
thy head also if thou restore not this damsel to life again.” The youth
quitted the palace in deep thought, and at last he bethought him that
the bird’s feathers might help him. So he took them out and burned them,
and lo! the bird stood before him ere yet his lips had commanded it to
appear. And the youth complained bitterly to the bird of the task that
was set him.
Now the bird had friends among the Peris, and, flying up into the air,
in no very long time was back again with a cruse of water in its beak.
“I have brought thee heavenly water which can give life even to the
dead,” said the bird. So the prince entered the palace, and no sooner
had he sprinkled the damsel with the water than she sprang up as if she
had never been dead at all.
Now the rumour of all these things reached the ears of the World’s most
beauteous Damsel, and she ordered the prince to be brought before her.
The damsel dwelt in a little marble palace, and before the palace was a
golden basin which was fed by the water of four streams. The courtyard
of this palace also was a vast garden wherein were many great trees and
fragrant flowers and singing-birds, and to the youth it seemed like the
gate of Paradise.
Suddenly the door of the palace was opened, and the garden was so
flooded with light that the eyes of
[Illustration: The World’s most Beauteous Damsel.--p. 159.]
the youth were dazzled even to blindness. It was the World’s most
beauteous Damsel who had appeared in the door of the palace, and the
great light was the rosiness of her two radiant cheeks. She approached
the prince and spoke to him, but scarcely did the youth perceive her
than he fainted away before her eyes. When he came to himself again they
brought him into the damsel’s palace, and there he rejoiced exceedingly
in the World’s most beauteous Damsel, for her face was as the face of a
Houri, and her presence was as a vision of Peris.
“Oh, prince!” began the damsel, “thou that art the son of Shah Suleiman,
canst aid me in my deep distress. In the vast garden of the Demon of
Autumn there is a bunch of singing-pomegranates: if thou canst get them
for me I will be thine for ever and ever.”
Then the youth gave her his hand upon it, the hand of loyal friendship,
and departed far far away. He went on and on without stopping, he went
on, and for months and months he crossed deserts where man had never
trod, and mountains over which there was no path. “Oh, my Creator,” he
sighed, “wilt thou not show me the right way?” and he rose up again each
morning from the place where he had sunk down exhausted the night
before, and so he went on and on from day to day till the path led him
right down to the roots of the mountains. There it seemed to him as if
it were the Day of Judgment. Such a noise, such a hubbub, such a
hurly-burly of sounds arose that all the hills and rocks around him
trembled. The youth knew not whether it was friend or foe, man or
spirit, and as he went on further, trembling with fear, the noise grew
louder and the dust rose up round about him like smoke. He knew not
where he was going, but he might have known from what he heard that the
smaller garden of the Demon of Autumn was now but a six-months’ journey
off, and all this great hubbub and clamour was the talisman of the gate
of the garden.
And now he drew still nearer and could see the gate of the smaller
garden, and could hear the roaring of the talismans in the gate, and
could perceive the guardian of the gate also. Then he went up to him and
told him of his trouble. “But art thou not afraid of this great
commotion?” asked the guardian of the gate. “Is it not because of thee
that all the talismans are so impatient? even I am afraid thereat!”
But the youth did nothing but inquire continually about the cluster of
singing-pomegranates.
“‘Tis a hard task to reach that,” said the guardian, “yet if thou art
not afraid, perhaps thou mayest get it after all. Three-months’ journey
from hence thou wilt come to such another place of talismans, there
also there is a garden, and the guardian of that garden is my own
mother. But whatever thou dost, take care not to draw nigh to her, nor
let her draw nigh to thee. Give her my salaams, but tell her nothing of
thy trouble unless she ask thee.”
So the youth went on towards the second garden, and after a
three-months’ journey such a monstrous din and racket arose around him
as to make the former noise seem nothing. This was the greater garden of
the Demon of Autumn, and the great din proceeded from the talismans of
the garden. The youth lay down beside a rock, and when he had waited a
little he saw something like a man approaching him, but as it came
nearer he perceived that it was an old woman, a little beldame of thrice
thirty winters. The hairs of her head were as white as snow, red circles
were round her eyes, her eyebrows were like pointed darts, the fire of
hell was in her eyes, her nails were two ells long, her teeth were like
faggots, her two lips had only one jaw, she shuffled along leaning on a
stick, drew in her breath through her nose, and coughed and sneezed at
every step she took. “Oh-oh! oh-oh!” she groaned, shuffling painfully
along in her large slippers, till it seemed as if she would never be
able to reach the new-comer. This was the mother of the guardian of the
lesser garden, and she herself was the guardian of the larger one.
At last she got up to the youth, and asked him what he was doing in
those parts? The prince gave her the compliments of her son. “Ah, the
vagabond!” said the old woman, “where didst thou meet with him? That
wicked lad of mine knew that I would have compassion on thee, so he sent
thee hither. Very well, let us make an end of thee.” And with that she
seized hold of him, and cried: “Hi, Earless!” and something came running
up to him, and before he knew where he was, the youth found himself
seated on its back. He looked down upon it and saw beneath him a
creature like a shrunken huddled toad, that had neither eyes nor ears.
This was Earless, and away it went with him. When he first saw it, it
was as small as a worm, but the moment he was on its back it took such
leaps that every three of them covered as much space as a vast ocean.
Suddenly Earless stopped short and said to him: “Whatever thou mayest
see, whatever thou mayest hear, take care not to speak, or it will be
all up with thee,” and with that it vanished.
There in the rippling water in front of the prince, like a dream-shape,
lay a large garden. This garden had neither beginning nor end, and
within it were such trees and flowers and sweet fruit as the eye of man
hath never seen. Whithersoever one turned nothing was to be heard but
the rustling of soft wings and the songs of nightingales, so that the
whole atmosphere of that garden seemed to be an eternal song. The youth
looked all about him, his reason died away within him, he entered the
garden. But then he heard quite near to him such a woeful wailing that
his heart was like to break, and the thought of the cluster of
pomegranates occurred to his mind. His eyes sought for them in every
direction but in vain, till he came to the centre of the garden, where
was a fountain and a little palace made of flowers, and the pomegranates
hung down from the flowery palace like so many shining lamps. The youth
plucked a branch, but no sooner had he done so than there was a horrible
cry, and a warning voice exclaimed--
“A son of man of us hath ta’en,
We by a son of man are slain!”
The youth scarce had time to escape from the garden. “Hasten! fly!”
cried Earless, who was waiting again at the gate. The youth jumped on
its back, and in a couple of leaps they were beyond the ocean. Then only
did the youth think of looking at the cluster of pomegranates. There
were fifty pomegranates on it, and each one had a different voice, and
each voice had a different song--it was just as if all the music in the
wide world was gathered together in one place. By this time they had
reached the old grandmother, the old old beldame of thrice thirty
winters.
“Guard well thy pomegranate cluster,” said the old woman, “never leave
it out of thy sight. If on the first night of thy wedding thou and thy
bride are able to listen to their music all night without going to sleep
once, these pomegranates will love thee, and after that thou wilt have
nothing more to fear, for they will deliver thee from every ill.” Then
they went from the old mother to the son; he also bade them take to
heart his mother’s words, and then the youth went on his way to his
sole-beloved, the World’s most beauteous Damsel.
The girl was awaiting him with the greatest impatience, for she also
dearly loved the prince, and her days were passed in anxiety lest some
mischief should befall the youth. All at once she heard the sound of
music, the fifty pomegranates were singing fifty different songs with
fifty different voices, and she opened her heart to the beautiful music.
The damsel rushed forth to meet the youth, and at their joyous embrace
the pomegranates rang out with a melody so sweet that the like of it is
not to be found in this world, but only in Allah’s world beyond the
grave. Forty days and forty nights did the wedding-feast last, and on
the fortieth day the King’s son went in unto his bride, and they lay
down and listened to the pomegranates. Then when the day was born again
they arose, and the pomegranate cluster rejoiced again in their love,
and so they went on their way to the prince’s own kingdom. There all the
feasting began again, and in his joy the old Padishah resigned his
kingdom to his son, the Padishah of the cluster of Pomegranates.
THE PADISHAH OF THE FORTY PERIS
In the old, old time, in the age of fairy tales, there was once the
daughter of a Padishah who was as fair as the full moon, as slim as a
cypress-tree, with eyes like coals, and hair like the night, and her
eyebrows were like bows, and her eyeballs like the darts of archers. In
the palace of the Padishah was a garden, and in the midst of the garden
a fountain of water, and there the maid sat the livelong day sewing and
stitching.
One day she put her ring upon her sewing-table, but scarcely had she
laid it down when there came a little dove and took up the ring and flew
away with it. Now the little dove was so lovely that the damsel at once
fell in love with it. The next day the damsel took off her bracelet, and
immediately the dove was there and flew off with that too. Then the
damsel was so consumed with love that she neither ate nor drank, and
could scarce tarry till the next day for the dove to come forth again.
And on the third day she brought her sewing-table, put upon it her lace
handkerchief, and placed herself close beside it. She waited for the
dove, and waited and waited, and lo! all at once there he was right
before her, and he caught up the handkerchief and away he flew. Then the
damsel had scarce strength enough to rise up; weeping bitterly she went
into the palace, and there she threw herself on the ground in a passion
of grief.
Her old waiting-woman came running towards her: “O Sultana!” cried she,
“wherefore dost thou weep so sorely?--what ails thee?”
“I am sick, my heart is sick!” replied the daughter of the Sultan, and
with that she fell a-weeping and a-wailing worse than ever.
The old waiting-woman feared to tell of this new thing, for the damsel
was the only daughter of the Padishah, but when she perceived how pale
the damsel was growing, and how she wept and sobbed, the waiting-woman
took her courage in both hands, went to the Padishah, and told him of
his daughter’s woe. Then the Padishah was afraid, and went to see his
daughter, and after him came many wise men and many cunning leeches, but
not one of them could cure her sickness.
But on the next day the Padishah’s Vizier said to him: “The wise men
and the leeches cannot help the damsel, the only medicine that can cure
her lies hidden elsewhere.” Then he advised the Padishah to make a great
bath, the water whereof should cure all sick people, but whoever bathed
therein was to be made to tell the story of his life. So the Padishah
caused the bath to be made, and proclaimed throughout the city that the
water of this bath would give back his hair to the bald, and his hearing
to the deaf, and his sight to the blind, and the use of his legs to the
lame. Then all the people flocked in crowds to have a bath for nothing,
and each one of them had to tell the story of his life and his ailment
before he returned home again.
Now in that same city dwelt the bald-headed son of a bed-ridden mother,
and the fame of the wonder-working bath reached their ears also. “Let us
go too,” said the son; “perchance the pair of us shall be cured.”
“How can I go when I can’t stand on my legs?” groaned the old
woman.--“Oh, we shall be able to manage that,” replied bald-pate, and
taking his mother on his shoulders he set out for the bath.
They went on and on and on, through the level plains by the flowing
river, till at last the son was tired and put his mother down upon the
ground. At that same instant a cock lighted down beside them with a big
pitcher of water on its back, and hastened off with it. Then the young
man became very curious to know why and whither this cock was carrying
water; so after the bird he went. The cock went on till it came to a
great castle, and at the foot of this castle was a little hole through
which water was gurgling. Still the youth followed the cock, squeezed
himself with the utmost difficulty through the hole, and no sooner had
he begun to look about him than he saw before him a palace so
magnificent that his eyes and mouth stood wide open with astonishment.
No other human being had ever stood in the path that led up to this
palace. All over it he went, through all the rooms, from vestibule to
attic, admiring their splendour without ceasing, till weariness overcame
him. “If only I could find a living being here!” said he to himself, and
with that he hid himself in a large armoury, from whence he could easily
pounce out upon any one who came.
He had not waited very long when three doves flew on to the window-sill,
and after shivering there a little while turned into three damsels, all
so beautiful that the young man did not know which to look at first.
“Alas, alas!” cried the three damsels, “we are late, we are late! Our
Padishah will be here presently, and nothing is ready!” Then one seized
a broom and brushed everything clean, the second spread the table, and
the third fetched all manner of meats. Then they all three began to
shiver once more, and three doves flew out of the window.
Meanwhile the bald-pate had grown very hungry, and he thought to
himself: “Nobody sees me, why should I not take a morsel or two from
that table?” So he stretched his hand out from his hiding-place, and was
just about to touch the food with it when he got such a blow on the
fingers that the place swelled up. He stretched out the other hand, and
got a still greater blow on that. The youth was very frightened at this,
and he had scarcely drawn back his hand when a white dove flew into the
room. It fell a-shivering and immediately turned into a beautiful youth.
And now he went to a cupboard, opened it, and took out a ring, a
bracelet, and a lace handkerchief. “Oh, lucky ring that thou art!” cried
he, “to be allowed to sit on a beautiful finger; and oh, lucky bracelet,
to be allowed to lie on a beautiful arm.” Then the beautiful youth fell
a-sobbing, and dried his tears one by one on the lace handkerchief. Then
he put them into the cupboard again, tasted one or two of the dishes,
and laid him down to sleep.
It was as much as the bald-pate could do to await the dawn of the day.
But then the beautiful youth arose, shivered, and flew away as a white
dove. Bald-pate too came out of his hiding-place, went down into the
courtyard, and crept once more through the hole at the foot of the
tower.
Outside he found his poor old mother weeping all alone, but the youth
pacified her with the assurance that their troubles were nearly at an
end, took her on his back again, and went to the bath. There they
bathed, and immediately the old woman was able to stand on her legs, and
the bald-pate got his hair back again. Then they began to tell their
stories, and when the Sultan’s daughter heard what the youth had seen
and heard at midnight, it was as though a stream of fresh health
instantly poured into her. She rose from her bed and promised the youth
a great treasure if he would bring her to that tower. So the youth went
with the princess, showed her the walls of the palace, helped her
through the little hole, brought her into the chamber of the doves, and
pointed out to her the armoury where he had been able to hide himself.
After that the youth returned home with great treasure and perfect
health, and lived all his days with his old mother.
At eventide the three doves flew into the room. They scoured and
cleaned, brought the meats for the table, and flew away again. Soon
afterwards the white dove came flying in, and how did that damsel feel
when she saw her darling little dove once more? But when the dove had
turned into a youth again, and stood there like a glorious full moon,
the damsel scarcely knew where she was, but gazed continuously on his
dazzling face.
Then the youth went to the cupboard, opened it, and took out the ring,
the bracelet, and the lace handkerchief that belonged to the daughter of
the Sultan. “Oh, thou ring! how happy shouldst thou be to sit on a
beauteous finger! Oh, thou bracelet! how happy thou shouldst be to lie
on a beauteous arm!” he cried. Then he took the lace handkerchief and
dried his tears, and at the sight thereof the heart of the damsel was
nigh to breaking. Then she tapped with her fingers on the door of the
armoury. The youth approached it, opened the door, and there stood his
heart’s darling. Then the joy of the youth was so great that it was
almost woe.
He asked the damsel how she had come thither to the palace of the Peris.
Then she told him of her journey, and how sick for love she had been.
Then the youth told her that he also was the son of a mortal mother, but
when he was only three days old the Peris had stolen him, and carried
him to this palace and made him their Padishah. He was with them the
whole day, and had only two hours to himself in the twenty-four. The
damsel, he said, might stay with him, and walk about here the whole day,
but towards evening she must hide herself; for if the forty Peris came
and saw her with him they would not leave her alive. To-morrow, he said,
he would show her his mother’s palace, where they would live in peace,
and he would be with her for two hours out of the twenty-four.
So the next day the Padishah of the Peris took the damsel and showed her
his mother’s palace. “When thou goest there,” said the Padishah, “bid
them have compassion on thee, and receive thee in memory of Bahtiyar
Bey, and when my mother hears my name she will not refuse thy request.”
So the damsel went up to the house and knocked at the door. An old woman
came and opened it, and when she saw the damsel and heard her son’s
name, she burst into tears and took her in. There the damsel stayed a
long time, and every day the little bird came to visit her, until a son
was born to the daughter of the Sultan. But the old woman never knew
that her son came to the house, nor that the damsel had been brought to
bed.
One day the little bird came, flew upon the window-sill, and said: “Oh,
my Sultana, what is my little seedling doing?”--“No harm hath happened
to our little seedling,” replied she, “but he awaits the coming of
Bahtiyar.”--“Oh! if only my mother knew,” sighed the youth, “she would
open her best room.” With that he flew into the room, turned into a man,
and fondled in his arms his wife and his little child. But when two
hours had passed he shivered a little, and a little dove flew out of the
window.
But the mother had heard her son’s speech, and could scarce contain
herself for joy. She hastened to her daughter-in-law, fondled and
caressed her, led her into her most beautiful room, and put everything
in order against her son’s arrival. She knew that the forty Peris had
robbed her of him, and she took counsel with herself how she might steal
him back again.
“When my son comes to-morrow,” said the old woman, “contrive so that he
stays beyond his time, and leave the rest to me.”
The next day the bird flew into the window, and lo! the damsel was
nowhere to be seen in the room. Then he flew into the more beautiful
room, and cried, “Oh! my Sultana, what is our little seedling
doing?”--And the damsel replied: “No harm hath befallen our little
seedling, but he awaits the coming of Bahtiyar.” Then the bird flew into
the room and changed into a man, and was so taken up with talking to his
wife, so filled with the joy of playing with his child and seeing it
play, that he took no count of time at all.
But what was the old woman doing all this time?
[Illustration: The Padishah of the Peris.--p. 174.]
There was a large cypress-tree in front of the house, and there the
forty doves were sometimes wont to alight. The old woman went and hung
this tree full of venomous needles. Towards evening, when the Padishah’s
two hours had run out, the doves who were the forty Peris came to seek
their Padishah, and alighted on the cypress-tree, but scarcely had their
feet touched the needles than they fell down to the ground poisoned.
Meanwhile, however, the youth suddenly remembered the time, and great
was his terror when he came out of the palace so late. He looked to the
right of him and he looked to the left, and when he looked towards the
cypress-tree there were the forty doves. And now his joy was as great as
his terror had been before. First he fell upon the neck of his consort,
and then he ran to his mother and embraced her, so great was his joy
that he had escaped from the hands of the Peris.
Thereupon they made them such a banquet that even after forty days they
had not got to the end of it. So they had their hearts’ desires, and ate
and drank and rejoiced with a great joy. May we too get the desires of
our hearts, with good eating and drinking to comfort us!
THE SERPENT-PERI AND THE MAGIC MIRROR
There was once upon a time a poor wood-cutter who had an only son. One
day this poor man fell sick and said to his son: “If I should die follow
thou my handicraft, and go every day into the wood. Thou mayest cut down
whatever trees thou dost find there, but at the edge of the wood is a
cypress-tree, that thou must leave standing.” Two days afterwards the
man died and was buried.
But the son went into the wood and cut down the trees, only the
cypress-tree he left alone. One day the youth stood close to this tree
and thought to himself: “What can be the matter with this tree, seeing
that I am not allowed to lay a hand upon it?” So he looked at it, and
considered it curiously, till at last he took his axe and went with evil
intent towards the tree. But he had scarcely lifted his foot when the
cypress-tree drew away from him. The wood-cutter mounted his ass and
pursued the tree but could not overtake it, and in the meantime eventide
came upon them. Then he dismounted from his ass and tied it to a tree,
but he himself climbed to the top of the tree to await the dawn.
Next morning, when the sky grew red, he descended from the tree, and
there at the foot of it lay only the bones of his ass. “Never mind, I’ll
go on foot,” said the wood-cutter, and he continued his pursuit of the
cypress, the tree going on before and he following after. All that day
he pursued but could not come up with it. The third day also he
shouldered his axe and pursued the tree, when he suddenly came upon an
elephant and a serpent fighting with each other. Believe the truth or
not as you will, but the truth is this, that the serpent was swallowing
the elephant; but the elephant’s great tusk stuck in the serpent’s
throat, and both beasts, seeing the youth staring at them, begged him to
help them.
What didn’t the elephant promise him if only he would slay the serpent!
“Nay, but all I would have thee do,” said the serpent, “is to break his
tusk off; the work is lighter, and the reward will be greater.” At these
words the youth seized his axe and chopped the elephant’s tusk right
off. The serpent then swallowed the elephant, thanked the youth, and
promised to keep his word and give him his reward.
While they were on the road the serpent stopped at a spring and said to
the youth: “Wait while I bathe in this water, and whatever may happen,
fear not!” With that the serpent plunged into the water, and immediately
there arose such a terrible storm, such a tempest, such a hurricane,
with lightning-flash upon lightning-flash, and thunder-bolt upon
thunder-bolt, that the Day of Judgment could not well be worse.
Presently the serpent came out of the bath, and then all was quiet
again.
They went a long way, and they went a little way, they took coffee, they
smoked their chibooks, they gathered violets on the road, till at last
they drew near to a house, and then the serpent said: “In a short time
we shall arrive at my mother’s house. When she opens the door, say thou
art my kinsman, and she will invite thee into the house. She will offer
thee coffee but do not drink it, she will offer thee meat but do not eat
it; but there’s a little bit of a mirror hanging up in the corner of the
door, ask my mother for that!”
So they came to the house, and no sooner had the Peri knocked at the
door than his mother came and opened it. “Come, my brother!” said the
serpent to the youth behind him.--“Who is thy brother?” asked his
mother.--“He who hath saved my life,” replied her son, and with that he
told her the whole story. So they went into the house, and the woman
brought the youth coffee and a chibook, but he would not take them. “My
journey is a hasty one,” said he, “I cannot remain very long.”
“Rest awhile at least,” said the woman, “we cannot let our guests depart
without anything.”
“Nothing do I want, but if thou wilt give me that bit of mirror in the
corner of the door I will take it,” said the youth. The woman did not
want to give it, but the youth insisted that perhaps his life might
depend upon that very piece of mirror, so at last she gave it to him,
though very unwillingly.
So the youth went on his way with the bit of mirror, and as he looked
into it he turned over in his mind what use he should make of it. As he
was still turning it over and looking at it, suddenly there stood before
him a negro efrit, one of whose lips touched the heavens, and the other
lip the earth. The poor youth was so frightened, that if the negro had
not said: “What are thy commands, my Sultan?” he would have run away for
ever and ever. As it was, it was as much as he could do to ask for
something to eat, and immediately there stood before him a rich and rare
banquet, the like of which he had never seen at his father’s, the
wood-cutter’s.
Then the youth felt very curious about the mirror, and looked into it
again, and immediately the black efrit stood before him again and said:
“What dost thou command, my Sultan?” Nothing would occur to his mind at
first, but at last his lips murmured the word “Palace,” and immediately
there stood before him a palace so beautiful that the Padishah himself
could not have a finer one. “Open!” cried the youth, and immediately the
gates of the palace flew open before him.
The youth rejoiced greatly in his bit of mirror, and his one thought was
what he should ask it to get him next. The beautiful Sultana-damsel, the
Padishah’s daughter, occurred to his mind, and the next moment his eye
sought his mirror and he desired from the big-lipped negro efrit a
palace in which the world-renowned daughter of the Padishah should be
sitting beside him, and he had scarce time to look around him when he
found himself sitting in the palace with the Sultan’s daughter by his
side. Then they kissed and embraced each other, and lived a whole world
of joy.
Meanwhile the Sultan learnt that his daughter had disappeared from her
own palace. He searched for her the whole realm through, he sent heralds
in every direction, but in vain were all his labours, the girl could not
be discovered. At last an old woman came to the Padishah and told him to
make a large casket, line it well with zinc, put her inside it, and cast
it into the sea. She would find the daughter of the Sultan, she said,
for if she was not here, she must be beyond the sea. So they made ready
the great casket, put the old woman inside it, put food for nine days
beside her, and cast it into the sea. The casket was tossed from wave to
wave, till at last it came to that city where the Sultan’s daughter
dwelt with the youth.
Now the fishermen were just then on the shore, and saw the huge casket
floating in the sea. They drew it ashore with ropes and hooks, and when
they opened it an old woman crept out of it. They asked her how she had
got inside it.
“Oh, that my enemy might lose the sight of his little eye that is so
dear to him!” lamented the old woman; “I have not deserved this of him!”
and with that she fell a-weeping and wailing till the men believed every
word she said. “Where is the Bey of your city?” cried she; “perhaps he
will have compassion upon me and receive me into his house,” she said to
the men. Then they showed her the palace, and exhorted her to go
thither, as perhaps she might get an alms.
So the old woman went to the palace, and when she knocked at the door,
the Sultan’s daughter came down to see who it was. The old woman
immediately recognized the damsel, and begged her (for the damsel knew
not the old woman) to take her into her service. “My lord comes home
to-night, I will ask him,” replied the damsel; “meanwhile rest in this
corner!” And the damsel’s lord allowed her to receive the old woman into
the house, and the next day she waited upon them.
There the old woman was for one day and for two days, for a week, for
two weeks, and there was no cook to cook the food, and no servant to
keep the place clean, and yet every day there was a costly banquet and
everything was as clean as clean could be. Then the old woman went to
the damsel and asked her whether she did not feel dull at being alone
all day. “If I were allowed to help thee pass the time away,” added she,
“perhaps it might be better.”--“I must first ask my lord,” replied the
damsel. The youth did not mind the old woman helping his wife to pass
away the time, and so she went up to the rooms of the damsel and stayed
with her for days together.
One day the old woman asked the damsel whence came all the rare meats,
and who did the service of the house. But the damsel knew not of the
piece of mirror, so she could tell the old woman nothing. “Find out from
thy lord,” said the old woman, and scarcely had the youth come home,
scarce had he had time to eat, than she wheedled him so that he showed
her the mirror.
That was all the old woman wanted. A couple of days she let go by, but
on the third and the fourth days she bade the damsel beg her lord for
the piece of mirror so that she might amuse herself therewith, and make
the time pass more easily. And indeed she had only to ask her lord for
it, for he, not suspecting her falseness, gave it to her. And in the
meantime the old woman was not asleep. She knew where the damsel had put
the mirror, stole it, and when she looked into it the negro efrit
appeared. “What is thy command?” inquired he of the old woman. “Take me
with this damsel to her father’s palace,” was her first command. Her
second command made of the youth’s palace a heap of ashes, so that when
the young wood-cutter returned home he found nought but the cat meeowing
among the ashes. There was also a small piece of meat there; the
Sultan’s daughter had thrown it down for the cat.
The youth took up the fragment of meat and set out to seek his consort.
Find her he would, though he roamed the whole world over. He went on and
on, he searched and searched till he came to the city where his wife
lived. He went up to the palace, and there he begged the cook to take
him into the kitchen as a servant out of pure compassion. In a couple of
days he had learnt from his fellow-servants in the kitchen that the
Sultan’s daughter had returned home.
One day the cook fell sick and there was no heart in him to attend to
the cooking. The youth, seeing this, bade him rest, and said he would
cook the food in his stead. The cook agreed, and told him what to cook,
and how to season it. So the youth set to work, roasting and stewing,
and when he sent up the dishes, he also sent up the scrap of food that
he had found on the ashes, and put it on the damsel’s plate. Scarcely
had the damsel cast eyes on this little scrap than she knew within
herself that her lord was near her. So she called the cook and asked
whom he had with him in the kitchen. At first he denied that he had any
one, but at last he confessed that he had taken a poor lad in to assist
him.
Then the damsel went to her father and said to him that there was a
young lad in the kitchen who prepared coffee so well that she should
like some coffee from his hands. So the lad was ordered up, and from
thenceforth he prepared the coffee and took it to the Sultan’s daughter.
So they came together again, and she told her lord how the matter had
gone. Then they took counsel how they should await their turn and get
the mirror back again.
Scarcely had the youth gone in to the damsel than the old woman
appeared. Although she had not seen him for long, she recognized him,
and, looking into the mirror, caused the poor lad to be sent back again
to the ashes of his old palace. There he found the cat still squatting.
When she felt hungry she caught mice, and such ravages did she make upon
them that at last the Padishah of the mice had scarce a soldier left.
Very wroth was the poor Padishah, but he durst not tackle the cat. One
day, however, he observed the youth, went up to him, and begged his
assistance in his dire distress, for if he waited till the morrow his
whole realm would be ruined.
“I’ll help thee,” said the youth, “though, indeed, I have enough
troubles of my own to carry already.”
“What is thy trouble?” asked the Padishah of the mice. The youth told
him about the history of the piece of looking-glass, and how it had been
stolen from him, and into whose hands it had fallen.
“Then I can help thee,” cried the Padishah, whereupon he called together
all the mice in the world. And he asked which of them had access to this
palace, and which knew of such-and-such an old woman, and the piece of
looking-glass. At these words a lame mouse hobbled forth, kissed the
ground at the feet of the Padishah, and said that it was his wont to
steal food from the old woman’s box. He had seen through the keyhole how
she took out a little bit of looking-glass every evening and hid it
under a cushion.
Then the Padishah commanded him to go and steal this bit of mirror. The
mouse, however, begged that he might have two comrades, sat on the back
of one of them, and so went on to the old woman. It was evening when
they arrived there, and the old woman was just eating her supper. “We
have come at the right time,” said the lame mouse, “we shall get
something to eat.” And with that they scampered into the room, satisfied
their hunger, and waited for the night. They arranged between them what
they should do, and when the old woman lay down they waited till she was
asleep. Scarcely had she fallen asleep than the lame mouse leaped into
her bed, made for her face, and began tickling her nose with the end of
its tail.
“P-chi! p-chi!” the old woman sneezed, so that her head nearly leaped
from her shoulders. “P-chi! p-chi!” she sneezed again, and meanwhile the
two other little mice rushed out, picked up the piece of looking-glass
from underneath the cushion, took the lame mouse on their backs, and
hurried home again.
The youth rejoiced greatly at the sight of the mirror, then he took the
cat with him so that it should do no more harm to the mice, and went
into other parts. There he took out the bit of mirror, looked into it,
and lo! the black efrit stood before him and said: “What is thy command,
my Sultan?”
The youth asked for a raiment of cloth of gold and a whole army of
soldiers, and before he had time to look round, in front of him stood
costly raiment, and he put it on; and a beautiful horse, and he sat on
its back; and a large army which marched behind him into the city. When
he arrived there he stood before the palace, and surrounded it with his
soldiers. Oh, how terrified the Padishah was at the sight of that vast
army!
The youth went into the palace, and demanded the damsel from her father.
In his terror the Padishah gave him not only his daughter but his realm.
The old woman was given into the hands of the big-lipped efrit, but the
bride and bridegroom lived happily in the midst of their glorious
kingdom. And close beside them stood the magic mirror that made all
their woes to vanish.
STONE-PATIENCE AND KNIFE-PATIENCE
There was once a poor woman who had one daughter, and this poor woman
used to go out and wash linen, while her daughter remained at home at
her working-table. One day she was sitting by the window as was her
wont, when a little bird flew on to the sewing-table and said to the
damsel: “Oh, little damsel, poor little damsel! death is thy
Kismet!”[13] whereupon it flew away again. From that hour the damsel’s
peace of mind was gone, and in the evening she told her mother what the
bird had said to her. “Close the door and the window,” said her mother,
“and sit at thy work as usual.”
So the next morning she closed the door and the window and sat her down
at her work. But all at once there came a “Whirr-r-r-r!” and there was
the little bird again on the work-table. “Oh, little damsel, poor little
damsel! death is thy Kismet,” and with that it flew away again. The
damsel was more and more terrified than ever at these words, but her
mother comforted her again: “To-morrow,” said she, “close fast the door
and the window, and get into the cupboard. There light a candle, and go
on with thy work!”
Scarcely had her mother departed with the dawn than the girl closed up
everything, lit a candle, and locked herself in the cupboard with her
work-table. But scarcely had she stitched two stitches when the bird
stood before her again, and said: “Oh, little damsel, poor little
damsel! death is thy Kismet!” and whirr-r-r-r! it flew away again. The
damsel was in such distress that she scarce knew where she was. She
threw her work aside, and began tormenting herself as to what this
saying might mean. Her mother, too, could not get to the bottom of the
matter, so she remained at home the next day, that she also might see
the bird, but the bird did not come again.
So their sorrow was perpetual, and all the joy of their life was gone.
They never stirred from the house but watched and waited continually, if
perchance the bird might come again. One day the damsels of their
neighbour came to them and asked the woman to let her daughter go with
them. “If she went for a little outing,” said they, “she might forget
her trouble.” The woman did not like to let her go, but they promised
to take great care of her and not to lose sight of her, so at last she
let her go.
So the damsels went into the fields and danced and diverted themselves
till the day was on the decline. On the way home they sat down by a well
and began to drink out of it. The poor woman’s daughter also went to
drink of the water, when lo! a wall rose up between her and the other
damsels, but such a wall as never the eye of man yet beheld. A voice
could not get beyond it, it was so high, and a man could not get through
it, it was so hard. Oh, how terrified was the poor woman’s daughter, and
what weeping and wailing and despair there was among her comrades. What
would become of the poor girl, and what would become of her poor mother!
“I will not tell,” said one of them, “for she will not believe
us!”--“But what shall we say to her mother,” cried another, “now that
she has disappeared from before our eyes?”--“It is thy fault, it is thy
fault!” “Twas thou that asked her!” “No, ’twas thou.” So they fell to
blaming each other, looking all the time at the great wall.
Meanwhile the mother was awaiting her daughter. She stood at the door of
the house and watched the damsels coming. The damsels came weeping sore,
and scarce dared to tell the poor woman what had befallen her daughter.
The woman rushed to the
[Illustration: The Poor Woman and the Three Damsels.--p. 190.]
great wall, her daughter was inside it and she herself was outside, and
so they wept and wailed so long as either of them had a tear to flow.
In the midst of this great weeping the damsel fell asleep, and when she
woke up next morning she saw a great door beside the wall. “Happen to me
what may, if I am to perish, let me perish, but open this door I
will!”--so she opened it. Beyond the door was a beautiful palace, the
like of which is not to be seen even in dreams. This palace had a vast
hall, and on the wall of this hall hung forty keys. The damsel took the
keys and began opening the doors of all the rooms around her, and the
first set of rooms was full of silver, and the second set full of gold,
and the third set full of diamonds, and the fourth set full of
emeralds--in a word, each set of rooms was full of stones more precious
than the precious things of the rooms before it, so that the eyes of the
damsel were almost blinded by their splendour.
She entered the fortieth room, and there, extended on the floor, was a
beautiful Bey, with a fan of pearls beside him, and on his breast a
piece of paper with these words written on it: “Whoever fans me for
forty days and prays all that time by my side will find her Kismet!”
Then the damsel thought of the little bird. So it was by the side of
this sleeper that she was to meet her fate! So she made her ablutions,
and, taking the fan in her hand, she sat down beside the Bey. Day and
night she kept on fanning him, praying continually till the fortieth day
was at hand. And on the morning of the last day she peeped out of the
window and beheld a negro girl in front of the palace. Then she thought
she would call this girl for a moment and ask her to pray beside the
Bey, while she herself made her ablutions and took a little repose. So
she called the negro girl and set her beside the Bey, that she might
pray beside him and fan his face. But the damsel hastened away and made
her ablutions and adorned herself, so that the Bey, when he awoke, might
see his life’s Kismet at her best and rejoice at the sight.
Meanwhile the black girl read the piece of paper, and while the white
damsel tarried the youth awoke. He looked about him, and scarcely did he
see the black girl than he embraced her and called her his wife. The
poor white damsel could scarce believe her own eyes when she entered the
room; but the black girl, who was jealous of her, said to the Bey: “I, a
Sultan’s daughter, am not ashamed to go about just as I am, and this
chit of a serving-maid dares to appear before me arrayed so finely!”
Then she chased her out of the room, and sent her to the kitchen to
finish her work and boil and fry. The Bey was surprised, but he would
not say a word, for the negro girl was his bride, while the other
damsel was only a kitchen-wench.
Now the Feast of Bairam fell about this time, and as is the custom at
such times, the Bey would fain have given gifts to them of his
household. So he went to the negress and asked her what she would like
on the Feast of Bairam. And the negress asked for a garment that never a
needle had sewn and never scissors had cut. Then he went down into the
kitchen and asked the damsel what she would like. “The stone-of-patience
has a yellow colour, and the knife-of-patience has a brown handle, bring
them both to me,” said the damsel. So the Bey went on his way, and got
the negress her garment, but the stone-of-patience and the
knife-of-patience he could find nowhere. What was he to do?--he could
not return home without the gifts. So he got on board his ship.
The ship had only got half-way when suddenly it stopped short, and could
neither go backwards nor forwards. The captain was terrified, and told
his passengers that there was some one on board who had not kept his
word, and that was why they could not get on. Then the Bey came forward,
and said that he it was who had not kept his word. So they put the Bey
ashore, that he might keep his promise and then return back to the ship.
Then the Bey walked along the sea-shore, and from the sea-shore he came
to a great valley, and he went wandering on and on till he stood beside
a large spring. And he had scarce trodden on the stones around it when
suddenly a huge negro stood before him and asked him what he wanted.
“The stone-of-patience is of a yellow colour and the knife-of-patience
has a brown sheath, bring them both to me!” said the Bey to the negro.
And the next moment both the stone and the knife were in his hand, and
he came back to the ship, went on board, and returned home. He gave the
garment to his wife, but the stone and the knife he put in the kitchen.
But the Bey was curious to know what the damsel would do with them, so
one evening he crept down into the kitchen and watched her.
When night approached she took the knife in her hand and placed the
stone in front of her and began telling them her story. She told them
what the little bird had thrice told her, and in what great terror both
her mother and herself had fallen.
And while she was looking at the stone it suddenly began to swell, and
its yellow hue hissed and bubbled as if there were life in it.
Then the damsel went on to say how she had wandered into the palace of
the Bey, how she had prayed forty days beside him, and how she had
entrusted the negress with the praying while she went to wash and dress
herself.
And the yellow stone swelled again, and hissed and foamed as if it were
about to burst.
Then the damsel told how the negress had deceived her, how instead of
her the Bey had taken the negress to wife.
And all this time the yellow stone went on swelling and hissing and
foaming as if there were a real living heart inside it, till suddenly it
burst and turned to ashes.
Then the damsel took the little knife by the handle and said: “Oh, thou
yellow patience-stone, thou wert but a stone, and yet thou couldst not
endure that I, a tender little damsel, a poor little damsel, should thus
be thrust out.” And with that she would have buried the knife in her
breast, but the Bey rushed forward and snatched away the knife.
“Thou art my real true Kismet,” cried the youth, as he took her into the
upper chamber in the place of the negress. But the treacherous negress
they slew, and they sent for the damsel’s mother and all lived together
with great joy.
And the little bird came sometimes and perched in the window of the
palace, and sang his joyful lay. And this is what he sang: “Oh, little
damsel, happy little damsel, that hast found thy Kismet!”
THE GHOST OF THE SPRING AND THE SHREW
Once upon a time which was no time if it was a time, in the days when my
mother was my mother and I was my mother’s daughter, when my mother was
my daughter and I was my mother’s mother, in those days, I say, it
happened that we once went along the road, and we went on and on and on.
We went for a little way and we went for a long way, we went over
mountains and over valleys, we went for a month continually, and when we
looked behind us we hadn’t gone a step. So we set out again, and we went
on and on and on till we came to the garden of the Chin-i-Machin
Pasha.[14] We went in, and there was a miller grinding grain, and a cat
was by his side. And the cat had woe in its eye, and the cat had woe on
its nose, and the cat had woe in its mouth, and the cat had woe in its
fore paw, and the cat had woe in its hind paw, and the cat had woe in
its throat, and the cat had woe in its ear, and the cat had woe in its
face, and the cat had woe in its fur, and the cat had woe in its tail.
Hard by this realm lived a poor wood-cutter, who had nothing in the
world but his poverty and a horrid shrew of a wife. What little money
the poor man made his wife always took away, so that he had not a single
_para_[15] left. If his supper was oversalted--and so it was many a
time--and her lord chanced to say to her: “Mother, thou hast put too
much salt in the food,” so venomous was she that next day she would cook
the supper without one single grain of salt, so that there was no savour
in it. But if he dared to say: “There is no savour in the food, mother!”
she would put so much salt in it next day that her husband could not eat
thereof at all.
Now what was it that befell this poor man one day? This is what befell.
He put by a couple of pence from his earnings to buy a rope to hang
himself withal. But his wife found them in her husband’s pocket: “Ho,
ho!” she cried, “so thou dost hide thy money in corners to give it to
thy comrades, eh?” In vain the poor man swore by his head that it was
not so, his wife would not believe him. “My dear,” said her husband, “I
wanted to buy me a rope with the money.”
“To hang thyself with, eh?” inquired his affectionate spouse.
“Well, thou knowest what a hideous racket thou dost make sometimes,”
replied her husband, meaning to pacify her.
“What I have done hitherto is little enough for a blockhead like thee,”
she replied, and with that she gave her husband such a blow that it
seemed to him as if the red dawn was flashing before him.
The next morning the wood-cutter rose early, saddled his ass, and went
towards the mountains. All that he said to his wife before starting was
to beg her not to follow him into the forest. This was quite enough for
the wife. Immediately he was gone she saddled her ass, and after her
husband she went without more ado. “Who knows,” murmured she to herself,
“what he may not be up to in the mountains, if I am not there to look
after him!”
The man saw that his wife was coming after him, but he made as if he did
not see, never spoke a word, and as soon as he got to the foot of the
mountain he set about wood-cutting. His wife, however, for she was a
restless soul, went up and down and all about the mountain, poked her
nose into everything, till at last her attention was fixed by a deserted
well, and she made straight for it.
Then her husband cried to her: “Take care, there’s a well right before
thee!”
The only effect this warning had upon the wife was to make her draw
still nearer. Again he cried to her: “Dost thou not hear me speak to
thee? Go not further on, for there’s a well in front of thee.”
“What do I care what he says?” thought she. Then she took another step
forward, but before she could take another the earth gave way beneath
her, and into the well she plumped. As for the husband, he was thinking
of something else, for he always minded his own business, so, his work
over, he took his ass and never stopped till he got home.
The next day, at dawn, he again arose, saddled the ass, and went to the
mountains, when the thought of his wife suddenly came into his mind.
“I’ll see what has become of the poor woman!” said he. So he went to the
opening of the well and looked into it, but nothing was to be seen or
heard of his wife. His heart was sore, for anyhow was she not his wife?
and he began to think whether he could get her out of the well. So he
took a rope, let it down into the well, and cried into the great depth
thereof: “Catch hold of the rope, mother, and I’ll draw thee up!”
Presently the man felt that the rope had become very heavy. He pulled
away at it with all his might, he tugged and tugged--what creature of
Allah’s could it be that he was pulling out of the well? And lo! it was
none other than a hideous ghost! The poor wood-cutter was sore afraid.
“Rise up, poor man, and fear not,” said the ghost. “The mighty Allah
rather bless thee for thy deed. Thou hast saved me from so great a
danger, that to the very day of judgment I will not forget thy good
deed.”
Then the poor man began to wonder what this great danger might be.
“How many many years I lived peaceably in this well I know not,”
continued the ghost, “but up to this very day I knew no trouble. But
yesterday--whence she came I know not--an old woman suddenly plumped
down on my shoulders, and caught me so tightly by both my ears, that I
could not get loose from her for a moment. By a thousand good fortunes
thou didst come to the spot, let down thy rope, and call to her to seize
hold of it. For in trying to get hold of it she let me go, and I at once
seized the rope myself, and, the merciful Allah be praised for it, here
I am on dry land again. Good awaits thee for thy good deed; list now to
what I say to thee!”
With that the ghost drew forth three wooden tablets, gave them to the
wood-cutter, and said to him: “I now go to take possession of the
daughter of the Sultan. Up to this day the princess has been hale and
well, but now she will have leeches and wise men without number, but all
in vain, not one of them will be able to cure her. Thou also wilt hear
of the matter, thou wilt hasten to the Padishah, moisten these three
wooden tablets with water, lay them on the face of the damsel, and I
will come out of her, and a rich reward will be thine.”
With that the wood-cutter took the three tablets, put them in his
pocket, and the ghost went to the right and he went to the left, and
neither of them thought any more of the old woman in the well. But let
us first follow the ghost.
Scarcely had this son of a devil quitted the wood-cutter than he stood
in the Serai of the Padishah, and entered into the poor daughter of the
Sultan. The poor girl immediately fell to the ground in great pain. “O
my head! O my head!” she cried continually. They sent word to the
Padishah, and he, hastening thither, found his daughter lying on the
ground and groaning. Straightway he sent for leeches, wise men, drugs,
and incense, but none of them assuaged her pain. They sent for them a
second time, they sent for them a third time, but all their labour was
in vain. At last they had ten doctors and ten wise men trying what they
could do, and all the time the poor girl kept moaning: “My head, my
head!”
“O my sweet child,” groaned the Padishah, “if thy head aches, believe me
my head, and my heart also, ache a thousand times as much to hear thee.
What shall I do for thee? I know what I will do. I will go call the
astrologers, perchance they will know more than I do.” And with that he
called together all the most famous astrologers in his kingdom. One of
them had one plan, another had another, but not one of them could cure
the complaint of the poor damsel.
But now let us see what became of the poor wood-cutter.
He lived on in the world without his wife, and gradually he forgot all
about her, and about the ghost and the three wooden tablets, and the
ghost’s advice and promise. But one day, when he had no thought at all
of these things, a herald from the city of the Padishah came to where he
was with a firman[16] in his hand, and read this out of it in a loud
voice: “The damsel, the Sultan’s daughter, is very sick. The leeches,
the wise men, the astrologers, all have seen her, and not one of them
can cure her complaint. Whoever is a master of mysteries, let him come
forward and doctor her. If he be a Mussulman, and cure her, the Sultan’s
daughter now and my realm after my death shall be his reward; and if he
be a Giaour[17] and cure her, all the treasures in my realm shall be
his.”
The wood-cutter needed no more to remind him of the ghost, the three
tablets, and his wife. He arose and went up to the herald. “By the mercy
of Allah I will cure the Sultan’s daughter, if she be still alive,” said
he. At these words the servant of the Padishah caught hold of the
wood-cutter, and led him into the Serai.
Word was sent at once of his arrival to the Padishah, and in an instant
everything was made ready for him to enter the sick chamber. There
before him lay the poor damsel, and all she did was to cry continually:
“My head, my head!” The wood-cutter brought forth the wooden tablets,
moistened them, and scarcely had he spread them on the Sultan’s daughter
than immediately she became as well again as if she had never been ill.
At this there was great joy and gladness in the Serai, and they gave the
daughter of the Sultan to the wood-cutter; so the poor man became the
son-in-law of the Padishah.
Now this Padishah had a brother who was also a Padishah, and his kingdom
was the neighbouring kingdom. He also had a daughter, and it occurred to
the ghost of the well to possess her likewise.
So she also began to be tormented in the same way, and nobody could find
a cure for her complaint. They searched and searched for assistance high
and low, till at last they heard how the daughter of the neighbouring
Padishah had been cured of a like sickness. So that other Padishah sent
many men into the neighbouring kingdom, and begged the first Padishah,
for the love of Allah, to send thither his son-in-law to cure the other
damsel also. If he cured her he was to have the damsel for his second
wife.
So the Padishah sent his son-in-law that he might cure the
damsel--’twould be nothing to such a master of mysteries as he, they
said. All that he could say was in vain, the poor fellow had to set out,
and as soon as he arrived they led him at once into the sick-chamber.
But now the ghost of the well had a word to say in the matter.
For that evil spirit was furious with his poor comrade. “Thou didst a
good deed to me, it is true,” began the ghost, “but thou canst not say
that I remained thy debtor. I left for thy sake the beautiful daughter
of the Sultan, and I chose out another for myself, and thou wouldst now
take her from me also? Well, wait a while, and thou shalt see that for
this deed of thine I will take them _both_ away from thee.”
At this the poor man was sore troubled.
“I did not come hither for the damsel,” said he, “she is thy property,
and, if such be thy desire, thou mayest take mine away also.”
“Then what’s thy errand here?” roared the ghost.
“Alas! ’tis my wife, the old woman of the well,” sighed the former
wood-cutter, “and I only left her in the well that I might be rid of
her.”
On hearing this the ghost was terribly frightened, and it was with a
small voice that he now inquired whether by chance she had come to light
again.
“Yes, indeed, she’s outside,” sighed the man, “wherever I may go I am
saddled with her. I haven’t the heart to free myself from her. Hark!
she’s at the door now, she’ll be in the room in a moment.”
The ghost needed no more. Forthwith he left the daughter of the Sultan,
and the Serai, and the whole city, and the whole kingdom, so that not
even the rumour of him remained. And not a child of man has ever seen
him since.
But the daughter of the Sultan recovered instantly, and they gave her to
the former wood-cutter, and he took her home as his second wife.
ROUMANIAN FAIRY TALES
THE STORY OF THE HALF-MAN-RIDING-ON-THE-WORSE-HALF-OF-A-LAME-HORSE
Once upon a time, long long ago, in the days when poplars bore pears and
rushes violets, when bears could switch themselves with their tails like
cows, and wolves and lambs kissed and cuddled each other, there lived an
Emperor whose hair was already white, and who yet had never a son to
bless himself with. The poor Emperor would have given anything to have
had a little son of his own like other men, but all his wishes were in
vain.
At last, when he was quite an old old man, Fortune took pity on him
also, and a darling of a boy was born to him, the like of which the
world had never seen before. The Emperor gave him the name of Aleodor,
and gathered east and west, north and south, together to rejoice in his
joy at the child’s christening. The revels lasted three days and three
nights, and all the guests who made merry there with the Emperor could
think of nothing else for the rest of their lives.
But the lad grew up as strong as an oak and as lovely as a rose, while
his father the Emperor drew nearer every day to the edge of the grave,
and when the hour of his death arrived he took the child on his knees
and said to him:
“My darling son, behold the Lord calls me. The moment is at hand when I
am to share the common lot of man. I foresee that thou wilt become a
great man, and though I be dead my bones will rejoice in the tomb at thy
noble deeds. As to the administration of this realm I need tell thee
nought, for thou, with thy wisdom, wilt know how it behoves a king to
rule. One thing there is, nevertheless, that I must tell thee. Dost thou
see that mountain over yonder? Beware of ever setting thy foot upon it,
for ’twill be to thy hurt and harm. That mountain belongs to the
‘Half-man-riding-on-the-worse-half-of-a-lame-horse,’ and whosoever
ventures upon that mountain cannot escape unscathed.”
He had no sooner said these words than his throat rattled thrice, and he
gave up the ghost. He departed to his place like every other human soul
that is born into the world, though there was never Emperor like him
since the world began. Those of his household bewailed him, his great
nobles bewailed
[Illustration: The Emperor and the Young Aleodor.--p. 210.]
him, his people bewailed him also, and then they had to bury him.
Aleodor, from the moment that he ascended the throne of his father,
ruled the land wisely like a mature statesman, though in age he was but
a child. All the world delighted in his sway, and men thanked Heaven for
allowing them to live in the days of such a prince.
All the time that was not taken up by affairs of State, Aleodor spent in
the chase. But he always bore in mind the precepts of his father, and
took care not to exceed the bounds which had been set him.
One day, however--how it came about I know not--but anyhow he fell into
a brown study, and never noticed that he had overstepped the domains of
the Half-man till, after taking a dozen steps or so onwards, he found
himself face to face with the monster. That he was trespassing on the
grounds of this stunted and terrible creature did not trouble him
over-much, it was the thought that he had transgressed the dying command
of his dear father that grieved him.
“Ho, ho!” cried the hideous monster, “dost thou not know that every
scoundrel who oversteps my bounds becomes my property?”
“Yes,” replied Aleodor, “but I must tell thee that it was through want
of thought and without wishing it that I have trodden on thy ground.
Against thee I have no evil design at all.”
“I know better than that,” replied the monster; “but I see that, like
all cowards, thou dost think it best to make excuses.”
“Nay, so sure as God preserves me, I am no coward. I have told thee the
simple truth; but if thou wouldst fight, I am ready. Choose thy weapons!
Shall we slash with sabres, or slog with clubs, or wrestle together?”
“Neither the one nor the other,” replied the monster. “One way only
canst thou escape thy just punishment--thou must fetch me the daughter
of the Green Emperor!”
Aleodor would very much have liked to have got out of the difficulty
some other way, as affairs of State would not allow him to take so long
a journey, a journey on which he could find no guide to direct him; but
what did the monster know of all that? Aleodor felt that if he would
avoid the shame of being thought a robber and a trampler on the rights
of others, he must indeed find the daughter of the Green Emperor.
Besides, he wanted to escape with a whole skin if he could; so at last
he promised that he would do the service required of him.
Now the Half-man-riding-on-the-worse-half-of-a-lame-horse knew very well
that, as a man of honour, Aleodor would never depart from his plighted
word, so he said to him: “Go now, in God’s name, and may good luck
attend thee!”
So Aleodor departed. He went on and on, thinking over and over again how
he was to accomplish his task, and so keep his word, when he came to the
margin of a pond, and there he saw a pike dashing its life out on the
shore. He immediately went up to it to satisfy his hunger with it, when
the pike said to him: “Slay me not, Boy-Beautiful![18] but cast me
rather back into the water again, and then I will do thee good whenever
thou dost think of me.”
Aleodor listened to the pike, and threw it back into the water again.
Then the pike said to him again: “Take this scale, and whenever thou
dost look at it and think of me I will be with thee.”
Then the youth went on further and marvelled greatly at such a strange
encounter.
Presently he fell in with a crow that had one wing broken. He would have
killed the crow and eaten it, but the crow said to him: “Boy-Beautiful,
Boy-Beautiful! why wilt thou burden thy soul on my account? Far better
were it if thou didst bind up my wing, and much good will I requite thee
with for thy kindness.”
Aleodor listened, for his heart was as kind as his hand was cunning; and
he bound up the crow’s wing. When he made ready to go on again, the crow
said to him: “Take this feather, thou gallant youth! and whenever thou
dost look at it and think of me, I will be with thee.”
Then Aleodor took the feather and went on his way. He hadn’t gone a
hundred paces further when he stumbled upon an ant. He would have
trodden upon it, when the ant said to him: “Spare my life, O Emperor
Aleodor, and I’ll deliver thee also from death! Take this little bit of
membrane from my wing, and whenever thou dost think of me, I’ll be with
thee.”
When Aleodor heard these words, and how the ant called him by his name,
he raised his foot again and let the ant go where it would. He also went
on his way, and after journeying for I know not how many days he came at
last to the palace of the Green Emperor. There he knocked at the door,
and stood waiting for some one to come out and ask him what he wanted.
He stood there one day, he stood there two days, but as for any one
coming out to ask him what he wanted, there was no sign of it. When the
third day dawned, however, the Green Emperor called to his servants and
gave them a talking to that they were likely to remember. “How comes
it,” said he, “that a man should be standing at my gates three days
without any one going out to ask him what he wants? Is this what I pay
you wages for?”
The servants of the Green Emperor looked up, and they looked down, but
they had not one word to say for themselves. At last they went and
called Aleodor and led him before the Emperor.
“What dost thou want, my son?” inquired the Emperor; “and wherefore art
thou waiting at the gates of my court?”
“I have come, great Emperor, to seek thy daughter.”
“Good, my son. But, first of all, we must make a compact together, for
such is the custom of my court. Thou must hide thyself wheresoever thou
wilt three times running. If my daughter finds thee all three times, thy
head shall be struck off and stuck on a stake, the only one out of a
hundred that has not a suitor’s head upon it. But if she does not find
thee thrice, thou shalt have her from me with all imperial courtesy.”
“My hope, great Emperor, is in the Lord, Who will not allow me to
perish. We will put something else on this stake of thine, but not the
head of a man. Let us make the compact.”
“Thou dost agree?”
“I agree.”
So they made them a compact, and the deeds were drawn out and signed and
sealed.
Then the daughter of the Emperor met him next day, and it was arranged
that he should hide himself as best he could. But now he was in an agony
that tortured him worse than death, for he bethought him again and again
where and how he could best hide himself, for nothing less than his head
was at stake. And as he kept walking about, and brooding and pondering,
he remembered the pike. Then he took out the fish’s scale, looked at it,
and thought of the fish’s master, and immediately, oh wonderful!--the
pike stood before him and said: “What dost thou want of me,
Boy-Beautiful?”
“What do I want? Thou mayest well ask that! Look what has happened to
me! Canst thou not tell me what to do?”
“That is thy business no longer. Leave it to me!”
And immediately striking Aleodor with his tail, he turned him into a
little shell-fish, and hid him among the other little shell-fish at the
bottom of the sea.
When the damsel appeared, she put on her eye-glass and looked for him in
every direction, but could see him nowhere. Her other wooers had hidden
themselves in caves, or behind houses, or under haycocks and haystacks,
or in some hole or corner, but Aleodor hid himself in such a way that
the damsel began to fear that she would be vanquished. Then it occurred
to her to turn her eye-glass towards the sea, and she saw him beneath a
heap of mussels. But you must know that her eye-glass was a magic
eye-glass.
“I see thee, thou rascal,” cried she, “how thou hast bothered me, to be
sure! From being a man thou hast made thyself a mussel, and hidden
thyself at the bottom of the sea.”
This he couldn’t deny, so of course he had to come up again.
But she said to the Emperor: “Methinks, dear father, this youth will
suit me. He is nice and comely. Even if I find him all three times let
me have him, for he is not stupid like the others. Why, thou canst see
from his figure even how different he is.”
“We shall see,” replied the Emperor.
On the second day Aleodor bethought him of the crow, and immediately the
crow stood before him, and said to him: “What dost thou want, my
master?”
“Look now, senseless one! what has happened to me. Canst thou not show
me a way out of it?”
“Let us try!” and with that it struck him with its wing and turned him
into a young crow, and placed him in the midst of a flock of crows that
were flying high in the air in the teeth of a fierce tempest.
Then the damsel came again with her eye-glass and searched for him in
every direction. He was nowhere to be found. She looked for him on the
earth, but he was not there. She looked for him in the rivers and in the
sea, but he was not there. The damsel grew pensive. She searched and
searched till mid-day, when it occurred to her to look upwards also. And
perceiving him in the glory of the sky in the midst of a swarm of crows,
she pointed him out with her finger and cried: “Look! look! Rogue that
thou art! Come down from there, O man, that hast made thyself into a bit
of a bird! Nothing in the fields of heaven can escape my eye!”
Then he came down, for what else could he do? Even the Emperor himself
now began to be amazed at the skill and cunning of Aleodor, and lent an
ear to the prayers of his daughter. Inasmuch, however, as the compact
declared that Aleodor was to hide three times, the Emperor said to his
daughter: “Wait once more, for I am curious to see what place he will
find to hide himself in next.”
The third day, early in the morning, he thought of the ant,
and--whisk!--the ant was by his side. When she had found out what he
wanted she said to him: “Leave it to me, and if she find thee I am here
to help thee.”
So the ant turned him into a flower-seed, and hid him in the very skirts
of the damsel without her perceiving it.
Then the Emperor’s daughter rose up, took her eye-glass, and sought for
him all day long, but look where she would she could not find him. She
plagued herself almost to death in her search, for she felt that he was
close at hand, though see him she could not. She looked through her
eye-glass on the ground, and in the sea, and up in the sky, but she
could see him nowhere, and towards evening, tired out by so much
searching, she exclaimed: “Show thyself then, this once! I feel that
thou art close at hand, and yet I cannot see thee. Thou hast conquered,
and I am thine.”
Then when he heard her say that he had conquered, he slipped slowly down
from her skirts and revealed himself. The Emperor had now nothing more
to say, so he gave the youth his daughter, and when they departed, he
escorted them to the boundaries of his empire with great pomp and
ceremony.
While they were on the road they stopped at a place to rest, and after
they had refreshed themselves somewhat with food, he laid his head in
her lap and fell asleep. The daughter of the Emperor could not forbear
from looking at him, and her eyes filled with tears as they feasted on
his comeliness and beauty. Then her heart grew soft within her, and she
could not help kissing him. But Aleodor, when he awoke, gave her a
buffet with the palm of his hand that awoke the echoes.
“Nay but, my dear Aleodor!” cried she, “thou hast indeed a heavy hand.”
“I have slapped thee,” said he, “for the deed thou hast done, for I have
not taken thee for myself, but for him who bade me seek thee.”
“Good, my brother! but why didst thou not tell me so at home? for then I
also would have known what to do. But let be now, for all that is past.”
Then they set out again till they came alive and well to the
Half-man-riding-on-the-worse-half-of-a-lame-horse.
“Lo, now! I have done my service,” said Aleodor, and with that he would
have departed. But when the girl beheld the monster, she shivered with
disgust, and would not stay with him for a single moment. The hideous
cripple drew near to the maiden, and began to caress her with honeyed
words, that so she might go with him willingly. But the girl said to
him: “Depart from me, Satan, and go to thy mother Hell, who hath cast
thee upon the face of the earth!” Then the half-monster half-man was
near to melting for the love he had for the damsel, and, writhing away
on his belly, he fetched his mother that she might help to persuade the
maid to be his wife. But meanwhile the damsel had dug a little trench
all round her, and stood rooted to the spot with her eyes fixed on the
ground. The hideous satanic skeleton of a monster could not get at her.
“Depart from the face of the earth, thou abomination!” cried she; “the
world is well rid of such a pestilential monster as thou art!”
Still he strove and strove to get at her, but finding at last he could
not reach her, he burst with rage and fury that a mere woman should have
so covered him with shame and reproach.
Then Aleodor added the domain of the
Half-man-riding-on-the-worse-half-of-a-lame-horse to his own
possessions, took the daughter of the Green Emperor to wife, and
returned to his own empire. And when his people saw him coming back in
the company of a smiling spouse as beautiful as the stars of heaven,
they welcomed him with great joy, and, mounting once more his imperial
throne, he ruled his people in peace and plenty till the day of his
death.
And now I’ll mount my horse again, and say an “Our Father” before I go.
THE ENCHANTED HOG
Once upon a time, a long long time ago, when fleas were shod with ninety
and nine pieces of iron, and flew up into the blue sky to fetch us down
fairy-tales, there lived an Emperor who had three daughters. One day,
when he was going to battle, he called these daughters to him and said
to them:
“Look now, my darlings! Needs must that I go to the wars. My foe is
advancing against me with a huge host. ’Tis with great bitterness of
heart that I part from you. In my absence, take care that you have your
wits about you, behave well, and look after the affairs of the
household. You have my leave to walk in the garden and enter all the
rooms of my house, only in the chamber at the bottom of the corridor on
the right-hand side you must not enter, or it will not be well with
you.”
“Depart in peace, papa!” cried they. “Never yet have we disobeyed the
words of thy commands. Go without any fear of us, and God give thee
victory over all thine enemies!”
So when he was quite ready to depart, the Emperor gave them the keys of
all his chambers; but once more he put them in mind of his command, and
then he bade them good-bye and departed.
The daughters of the Emperor kissed his hand with tears in their eyes,
and wished him victory once more, and then the eldest of the three
daughters received the keys from the hands of the Emperor.
When the daughters of the Emperor found themselves all alone they knew
not what to do with themselves, the time hung so heavily. At last they
agreed to work a part of the day, and to read another part of the day,
and spend the rest of the day walking in the garden. This they did, and
things went well with them.
But the Deceiver of mankind was vexed at the tranquillity of the
maidens, so he must needs twist his tail in their affairs.
“My sisters,” said the eldest of the three damsels one day, “why do we
spend the live-long day in sewing and knitting and reading? I am sick
and tired of it all. It is ever so many days now since we were left to
ourselves, and there’s not a corner of the garden that we have not
walked in over and over again. We have also been through all the rooms
of our father’s palace, and looked at all the ornaments there till we
know them by heart. Let us now enter into that chamber which our father
told us not to enter.”
“Woe is me, dear sister!” said the youngest damsel. “I wonder that thou
shouldst persuade us to tread underfoot the precepts of our father. When
our father told us not to enter there, he must needs have known what he
was saying, and why he told us so to do.”
“Dost thou fancy, silly, that there’s some evil serpent there that will
eat us, or some other foul beast perhaps?” cried the middle sister.
“Besides, how is papa to know whether we were there or not?”
Talking and arguing thus, they had reached the door of the chamber, and
the eldest sister, who was the guardian of the keys, popped the key into
the key-hole, and turning it round--crack-rack!--the door flew wide
open.
The damsels entered.
What do you think they saw there? The room was bare of furniture, but in
the middle of it stood a large table covered with a beautiful cloth, and
on the top of it was a wide-open book.
The girls, all full of impatience, wanted to find out what was written
in this book, and the eldest went up to it and read these words: “The
eldest daughter of the Emperor will marry a son of the Emperor of the
East.”
Then the second daughter went up to the book, and turning over the leaf,
read these words: “The second daughter of the Emperor will marry a son
of the Emperor of the West.”
The girls laughed and made merry at these words, and giggled and joked
among themselves. But the youngest daughter would not go up to the book.
But the elder ones would not leave her in peace, but dragged her up to
the long table, and then, though very unwillingly, she turned over the
leaf and read these words--
“The youngest daughter of the Emperor will have a pig for her spouse.”
A thunderbolt falling from the sky could not have hurt her more than the
reading of these words. She was like to have died of horror, and if her
sisters had not held her she would have dashed her head to pieces
against the ground.
When she had come to herself again, her sisters began to try to comfort
her. “How canst thou believe all that nonsense?” said they. “When didst
thou ever hear of the daughter of an Emperor marrying a pig?”
“What a baby thou art!” added the eldest, “as if papa hadn’t armies
enough to save thee, even if so loathsome a monster as that _did_ come
and try and make thee his wife!”
The youngest daughter of the Emperor would very much have liked to
believe what her sisters said, but her heart would not allow it. She
thought continually of the book which promised her sisters such handsome
bridegrooms, while it foretold that that should happen to her which had
never yet happened since the world began. Then she reflected how she had
transgressed the commands of her father, and her heart smote her. She
began to grow thin, and ere a few days had passed she had so changed
that none could recognize her. She became sad and sallow, instead of
rosy and rollicking, and could take part in nothing at all. She ceased
to play with her sisters in the garden; she ceased to cull posies and
make garlands of them for her head, and when her sisters sang over their
distaffs and embroideries her voice was dumb.
Meanwhile the Emperor, the father of these girls, succeeded beyond even
the wishes of his dearest friends, and vanquished and dispersed his
enemies. As his thoughts were continually with his daughters, he did
what he had to do quickly and returned home. Crowds and crowds of people
turned out to meet him with fifes and drums and trumpets, and great was
their joy at the sight of their victorious Emperor.
When he reached his capital, before going home, he gave thanks to God
for aiding him against the enemies who had tried to do him evil. Then he
went to his own house, and his daughters came out to meet him. His joy
was great when he saw how well they were, for his youngest daughter did
her best to appear as gay and happy as the others.
But it was not very long before the Emperor observed that, little by
little, his youngest daughter was growing sadder and thinner. “What if
she has broken my commands?” thought he, and as it were a red-hot iron
pierced his soul. Then he called his daughters to him, and bade them
speak the truth. They confessed, but they did not say which of them had
first persuaded them.
When the Emperor heard this he was filled with bitterness, and from
henceforth sadness took possession of him. But he held his tongue, and
did but make all the more of his youngest daughter because he was about
to lose her. What’s done is done, and he knew that thousands and
thousands of words can’t make one farthing.
Time went on, and he had almost come to forget the circumstance, when
one day there appeared at the Emperor’s court the son of the Emperor of
the East, who sought the hand of his eldest daughter. The Emperor gave
her to him with joy. They had a splendid wedding, and after three days
he conducted them with great pomp to the frontier. A little while
afterwards the same thing happened to the second daughter, for the son
of the Emperor of the West came and sought her in marriage likewise.
Accordingly as she saw what had been written in the book gradually
fulfilled, the youngest daughter of the Emperor grew sadder and sadder.
She no longer enjoyed her food; she would not go out walking; she even
lost all pleasure in raiment; she preferred to die rather than become
the laughing-stock of the whole world. But the Emperor did not give her
the opportunity of doing anything foolish, but took care to divert her
with all manner of pleasant stories.
Time went on, and lo!--oh, wonderful!--one day a large hog entered the
royal palace and said: “Hail, O Emperor! May thy days be as rosy and as
joyous as sunrise on a cloudless day!”
“Good and fair is thy greeting, my son!” replied the Emperor; “but what
ill wind hath blown thee hither, I should like to know?”
“I have come as a wooer,” replied the hog.
The Emperor marvelled greatly at hearing such a pretty speech in the
mouth of a hog, and immediately felt within himself that all was not
right here. He would have put the hog off with some excuse if he could,
to save his daughter, but when he heard the court and all the ways
leading to it full of the grunts of the hogs who had accompanied the
wooer, he had nothing to say for himself, and promised the hog that he
would do what it asked. But the hog was not content with his bare
promise, but insisted that the wedding should take place within a week.
Only when it had obtained the Emperor’s word that it should be so did it
go away.
The Emperor told his daughter that she must submit to her fate, as it
was clearly the will of God. Then he added: “My daughter, the speech and
sensible bearing of this hog belong to no brute beast with which I am
acquainted. I’ll wager my head upon it that he was never _born_ a hog.
There must be a touch of sorcery here, or some other devilry. If thou
art obedient, thou wilt not depart from thy given word, for God will not
allow thee to be tormented for long.”
“If thou dost think it good, dear father,” replied the girl, “I will
obey thee, and put my trust in God. Let Him do what He will with me. It
must be so, I have no other way to turn.”
In the meantime the wedding-day arrived. The marriage was celebrated in
secret. Then the hog got into one of the imperial carriages with his
bride, and so they set off homewards.
On the journey they had to pass by a large marsh. The hog ordered the
carriage to stop, got down, and wallowed about in the mire till he was
pretty nearly one with it. Then he got into the carriage again, and told
his bride to kiss him. Poor girl, what could she do? She took out her
cambric pocket-handkerchief, wiped his snout a little, and then kissed
him. “I am but obeying my father’s commands,” thought she.
At last they reached the hog’s house, which was in the midst of a dense
forest. It was now evening, and when they had rested a little from the
fatigues of the road they supped together and lay down to rest. In the
night the daughter of the Emperor perceived that her husband was a man
and not a hog, and she marvelled greatly. Then she called to mind the
words of her father, and hope once more arose in her breast.
Every evening the hog shook off his hog-skin, and every morning before
she awoke he put it on again.
One night passed, two nights passed, a great many nights passed, and the
damsel could not make out how it was that her husband was a man at night
and a hog in the daytime. For he was under a spell; an enchanter had
done him this mischief.
Gradually she began to love him, especially when she felt that she was
about to become a mother, but what grieved her most was that she was
all alone, with none at hand to aid her in her hour of need.
One day, however, she saw an old long-nosed witch pass by that way. Now
as she had seen no human creature for a long time, she was full of joy,
and called to her, and they had a long talk together.
“Tell me now, old woman,” cried she, “the meaning of this marvel. In the
daytime my husband is a hog, but when he sleeps beside me at night he is
a man. Explain this marvel to me!”
“I’ll tell thee that later on, but in the meanwhile shall I give thee
some medicines that will put an end to the spell that holds him?”
“Oh, do, little mother, and I’ll pay thee for them whatever thou wilt,
for I hate to see him as he is now.”
“Very well, then. Take this bit of rope, my little chicken, but let him
not know anything about it, or it will lose its effect. Now when he is
asleep, rise up, and going to him very very softly, tie his left leg as
hard as thou canst, and thou wilt see, dear heart, that on the morrow
he’ll remain a man. Money I do not want. I shall be more than repaid if
I release him from this scourge. My very heart-strings are bursting with
compassion for thy lord, my rose-bud, and I grieve, oh how bitterly I
grieve, that I did not come this way before, so as to help thee
sooner.”
When the old hag had departed, the daughter of the Emperor took care to
carefully conceal the piece of rope, but in the middle of the night she
softly arose so that he shouldn’t hear her, and holding her very breath,
tied the string round her husband’s left leg, but when she tied the
knot--r-rch!--the string broke, for it was rotten, and instantly her
husband started up.
“Unhappy woman!” cried he, “what hast thou done? But three days more and
I should have been free of this vile spell, but now who knows how long I
may have to carry this vile bestial skin! And know, moreover, that thy
hand can never touch me again till thou hast worn out three pairs of
iron sandals, and worn down three staves of steel, seeking me all over
the wide world, for now I must depart.”
And with these words he disappeared.
The poor daughter of the Emperor, when she found herself all alone,
began to cry and sob as if her heart would break. She cursed the vile
witch with fire and sword, but all in vain, and when at last she saw
that all her cursing and moaning did no good, she got up and went
whithersoever the mercy of God and the desire of her husband might lead
her.
At the first city she arrived at she bade them make her three pairs of
iron sandals and three staves of steel, made provision for her journey,
and set off to seek her husband.
She went on and on, past nine kingdoms and nine seas, she passed through
vast forests where the treestumps were like barrels, she got black and
blue from stumbling over the trunks of fallen trees, yet often as she
fell, she always got up again and resumed her way; the branches of the
trees struck her in the face, the briars tore her hands, yet on and on
she went without so much as looking back once. At last, weary with her
journey and her burden, bowed down with grief and yet with hope in her
heart, she came to a little house. And who should be living there but
the Holy Moon.
The damsel knocked at the door and begged them to let her come in and
rest a little, especially as she was about to become a mother.
The mother of the Holy Moon had compassion on her and her afflictions,
so she let her come inside and took good care of her. Then she asked
her: “How is it that thou, a creature of another race, hast managed to
come so far as this?”
Then the poor daughter of the Emperor told her everything that had
happened to her, and wound up by saying: “I praise and thank God first
of all for directing my footsteps even to this place, and I thank Him in
the second place because He allows not my child to perish at the hour
of its birth. And now I beg thee to tell me whether thy daughter, the
Holy Moon, hath seen my husband anywhere?”
“That I cannot tell thee, my dear,” replied the mother of the Holy Moon;
“but if thou dost go on thy way towards the east till thou comest to the
house of the Holy Sun, maybe he will be able to tell thee somewhat.”
Then she gave her a roast fowl to eat, and told her to be very careful
not to lose one of the bones, as they would be very useful to her.
The daughter of the Emperor thanked the mother of the Moon for her
hospitality and kind words, and after throwing away the pair of iron
sandals which she had worn out, she put on another pair, placed the
fowl’s bones in her bosom, took her child on her arm, and a second staff
of steel in her hand, and took to the road again.
She went on and on through nothing but plains of sand, and the way was
so bad that she glided one step backwards for every two steps she went
forwards. On and on she struggled till at last she left these plains
behind her; and now she got amongst high mountains, steep and rugged,
and crawled from rock to rock and from crag to crag. Whenever she came
to a little plot of level ground she stopped and rested a little, and
reflected that now she was a little nearer her husband than she was
before, and then she went on her way again. The sides of the mountains
were of hard-pointed flints, which bruised and cut her feet, knees, and
sides till they were covered with blood; for you must know that these
mountains were so high that they reached beyond the clouds. There were
precipices in the way too that she could only pass by going down on her
hands and knees and guiding herself with her staff.
At last, quite overcome by fatigue, she came to a palace.
Here lived the Sun.
She knocked at the door and begged them to take her in.
The mother of the Sun received her, and was amazed to see a creature of
another race in those regions, and full of compassion when she heard
what had befallen her. Then, when she had promised to ask her son about
the damsel’s husband, she hid her in the cellar, that the Sun might not
perceive her when he came home in the evening, for he always came back
in a bad temper.
Next day the daughter of the Emperor was afraid she would be found out,
as the Sun said he smelt a creature from another world. But his mother
soothed him with soft words, and told him that it was pears that he
smelt. The daughter of the Emperor took courage when she saw how well
she was treated, and said:
“Tell me now, how can the Sun be ever vexed, seeing that he is so
beauteous, and doeth so much good to mortals?”
“I’ll tell thee,” replied the mother of the Sun. “In the morning he
stands in the gate of Heaven, and then he is merry, so merry, and smiles
upon the whole world. But at mid-day he is full of disgust, inasmuch as
he sees all the follies of men, and so his wrath burns and he gets
hotter and hotter; while in the evening he is vexed and sorrowful
because he stands in the gate of Hades, for that is the usual way by
which he comes home.”
She told her besides that she had asked about her husband, and her son
had replied that he knew not anything about him, as he was living in the
midst of a vast and dense forest, so that his beams could not pierce
through the thick foliage; the only thing to do was to go and ask the
Wind about it. Then she also gave her a roast fowl, and told her to take
great care of the bones.
So the daughter of the Emperor pitched away the second pair of iron
sandals that she had worn out, tied up the bones, took her child on her
arm and a third staff in her hand, and went after the Wind.
On this journey she met with hardships greater than any before, for she
came upon mountains of flintstones, one after another, through which
darted flames of fire, forests untrodden by man, and fields of ice dark
with snow-storms. More than once the poor creature was on the point of
falling, but with perseverance and the help of God she overcame even
these great hardships, and at last she reached a ravine between two
mountains, large enough to hold seven cities.
This was the abode of the Wind.
There was a gate in the wall which surrounded it. She knocked and
implored them to let her in. The mother of the Wind had compassion on
her, and let her in and invited her to rest. “If she had hidden from the
Sun,” she said, “surely the Wind would not find her out.”
The next day the mother of the Wind told her that her husband was living
in a huge dense wood, which the axe of man had never yet reached, and
there he had made him a sort of house by piling up the trunks of trees
one on the top of another, and plaiting them together with withy bands,
where he lived all alone for fear of wicked men. Then, after she had
given her a roast fowl and told her to take good care of the bones, the
mother of the Wind counselled her to follow the road that led straight
to the sky, and let the stars of heaven be her guides. She said she
would, and after thanking her with tears of joy for her hospitality and
for her glad tidings, she went on her way.
The poor woman turned night into day. She stopped neither to eat nor to
rest, so fiercely did the desire to find her husband burn within her.
She went on and on till she quite wore out the third pair of sandals.
She threw them away, and began to walk with bare feet. She cared not for
the hard clumps of earth, she took no heed of the thorns that entered
into her feet, nor of the pain she suffered when she stumbled over the
hard stones. At last she came to a green and beauteous meadow on the
margin of a forest, and her heart rejoiced within her when she felt the
soft grass and saw the sweet flowers. She stopped and rested a little.
But when she saw the birds in couples and couples on the branches of the
trees, a burning desire for her own husband came upon her, and she began
to weep bitterly, and with her child on her arm, and her bundle of bones
in her girdle, she went on her way. She entered the forest. She did not
once look at the soft green turf which soothed her feet, she listened
not to the birds that chirped enough to deafen her, she regarded not the
flowers that peeped out from among the bushes, but groped her way step
by step into the depths of the forest. For from the tokens given her by
the mother of the Wind she perceived that this must be the forest in
which her husband was staying.
Three days and three nights she roamed through the forest, and could see
no one. So worn was she now with fatigue that she fell to the ground,
and there she lay for a day and a night without moving, nor did she eat
and drink.
At last she rallied all her remaining strength, rose up, and tottering
along, tried to support herself on her staff; but it could help her no
more, for that also was quite worn down so that it was now no good to
her. Still trusting in God, she went on as best she could. She hadn’t
taken ten steps forward when she saw in a cleft of the rock just such a
sort of house as the mother of the Wind had told her of. She went
towards it, and just managed to get up to it and no more. It was a house
that had neither window nor door, but there was an opening in the roof.
She looked around her, but there was no sign of a ladder.
What was she to do to get inside it?
She thought and thought again. She tried to climb up it, but in vain.
Suddenly she thought of the bones which she had been carrying all this
way. “If only I could find out,” said she, “how these bones are to
assist me!” She took them out of the bundle, looked at them, reflected a
little, and then put one atop the other, and--oh, wonderful!--they
joined on to each other as if they had been glued. Then she joined
another on to the first two and then another till she made out of them
two long bars. Then she put a little bone across the two bars, and it
stuck fast like the rung of a ladder. She mounted on it, and placed
another little bone across a bit higher, and then she mounted on that
also, and so she ascended from rung to rung, placing the small bones
across as she went along, till she got quite near the top; but then she
saw that there was a wide gap between the last rung of her ladder and
the door in the roof of the house, and she now had no more bones to make
the last rung. She must have lost it on the way. What was she to do now?
She bethought her for a while, and then she cut off a finger and placed
that between the bars. Sure enough it joined on to and formed the last
rung, and mounting on it she entered the door of the house with her
child in her arms. There she rested for awhile, gave her child to suck,
and sat down herself on the threshold.
When her husband came he was so amazed at what he saw that he could
scarce believe his eyes, and there he stood looking at the ladder of
bones, the last rung of which was a severed human finger. Fear came upon
him lest there should be some evil enchantment about the thing, and he
would have turned his back upon the house if God had not put it into his
mind to enter. So turning himself into a dove, and flying up into the
air without once touching the ladder, lest evil spells should lay hold
of him, he entered the house in full flight, and there he beheld his
wife nursing a child; and instantly he was full of tenderness and
compassion towards her, for he bethought him of how much she must have
suffered and endured before she could have found her way to him. Nay, he
could scarce recognize her, so changed was she by her hardships and
sufferings.
But the daughter of the Emperor, when she saw him, sprang from her seat,
and her heart failed her for fright, for she did not know him. Then he
made himself known to her, and she regretted no longer all she had gone
through to find him, nay, she forgot it altogether, for he was as tall
and straight as a lordly pine.
Then they began talking together. She told him all that had befallen
her, and he wept for pity. Then he also spoke, and told her his story.
“I am the son of an Emperor,” said he. “In the war which my father waged
with the dragons, our neighbours (and evil neighbours they were, ever
ravaging his domains), I slew the smallest of the dragons. Now his
mother knew that thou wert my destined bride, so she laid the curse of
her spells upon me, and constrained me to wear the skin of an unclean
beast, with the design of preventing me from having thee. Yet God aided
me, and I won thee nevertheless. That old woman who gave thee the cord
to tie my legs with was the dragon’s mother, and when I had but three
days more to bear the spell, I was forced, by thy folly, to go about in
pigskin three years longer. But now since thou hast suffered for me and
I have suffered for thee, let us praise God and return to our parents.
Without thee I should have resigned myself to living the life of a
hermit, and so I chose this desert for my habitation, and built me this
house so that no child of man should get at me.”
Then they embraced each other full of joy, and promised to forget all
their past sorrows.
The next day they rose early and went back first of all to the Emperor
his father. When it was known that he and his consort had arrived, all
the world wept with joy; but his father and mother embraced them
tightly, and the public rejoicings lasted three days and three nights.
Then he went on to the Emperor the father of his wife, and he was like
to have gone out of his mind for joy when he saw them. When he had heard
all their adventures he said to his daughter: “Did I not tell thee not
to believe that he who sought thy hand was ever born a hog? Thou hast
done well, my daughter, to listen to my words.”
And being an old man, and having no heirs, he descended from his throne
and put them upon it in his stead. Then they reigned in peace, and if
they are not dead they are living still.
And now I’ll mount my horse again and say an “Our Father” before I go.
BOY-BEAUTIFUL, THE GOLDEN APPLES, AND THE WERE-WOLF
Once upon a time, a long while ago, when the very flies wrote upon the
walls more beautifully than the mind can picture, there lived an Emperor
and an Empress who had three sons, and a very beautiful garden alongside
their palace. At the bottom of this garden there grew an apple-tree,
entirely of gold from the top to the bottom. The Emperor was wild with
joy at the thought that he had in his garden an apple-tree, the like of
which was not to be found in the wide world. He used to stand in front
of it, and poke his nose into every part of it, and look at it again and
again, till his eyes nearly started out of his head. One day he saw this
tree bud, blossom, and form its fruit, which began to ripen before him.
The Emperor twisted his moustache, and his mouth watered at the thought
that the next day he would have a golden apple or two on his table, an
unheard-of thing up to that moment since the world began.
Day had scarcely begun to dawn next morning, when the Emperor was
already in the garden to feast his eyes to the full on the golden
apples; but he almost went out of his mind when, instead of the ripened
golden apples, he saw that the tree was budding anew, but of apples
there was no sign. While he stood there he saw the tree blossom, the
blossoms fall off, and the young fruit again appear.
At this sight his heart came back to him again, and he joyfully awaited
the morrow, but on the morrow also the apples had gone--goodness knows
where! The Emperor was very wroth. He commanded that the tree should be
strictly guarded, and the thief seized; but, alas! where were they to
find him?
The tree blossomed every day, put forth flowers, formed its fruit, and
towards evening the fruit began to ripen. But in the middle of the night
somebody always came and took away the fruit, without the Emperor’s
watchers being aware of it. It was just as if it were done on purpose.
Every night, sure enough, somebody came and took the apples, as if to
mock at the Emperor and all his guards! So though this Emperor had the
golden apple-tree in his garden, he not only never could have a golden
apple on his table, but never even saw it ripen. At last the poor
Emperor took it so to heart that he said he would give up his throne to
whosoever would catch and bind the thief.
Then the sons of the Emperor came to him, and asked him to let them
watch also. Great was the joy of the Emperor when he heard from the
mouth of his eldest son the vow he made to lay hands upon the thief. So
the Emperor gave him leave, and he set to work. The eldest son watched
the first night, but he suffered the same disgrace that the other
watchers had suffered before him.
On the second night the second son watched, but he was no cleverer than
his brother, and returned to his father with his nose to the earth.
Both the brothers said that up to midnight they had watched well enough,
but after that they could not keep their feet for weariness, but fell
down in a deep sleep, and recollected nothing else.
The youngest son listened to all this in silence, but when his big
brothers had told their story, he begged his father to let _him_ watch
too. Now, sad as his father was at being unable to find a valiant
warrior to catch the thief, yet he burst out laughing when he heard the
request of his youngest son. Nevertheless, he yielded at last, though
only after much pressing, and now the youngest son set about guarding
the tree.
When the evening had come, he took his bow, and his quiver full of
arrows, and his sword, and went down into the garden. Here he chose out
a lonely place, quite away from wall and tree, or any other place that
he might have been able to lean against, and stood on the trunk of a
felled tree, so that if he chanced to doze off, it might slip from under
him and awake him. This he did, and when he had fallen two or three
times, sleep forsook him, and weariness ceased to torment him.
Just as it was drawing nigh to dawn, at the hour when sleep is sweetest,
he heard a fluttering in the air, as if a swarm of birds was
approaching. He pricked up his ears, and heard something or other
pecking away at the golden apples. He pulled an arrow from his quiver,
placed it on his bow, and drew it with all his might--but nothing
stirred. He drew his bow again--still there was nothing. When he had
drawn it once more, he heard again the fluttering of wings, and was
conscious that a flock of birds was flying away. He drew near to the
golden apples, and perceived that the thief had not had time to take all
of them. He had taken one here, and one there, but most of them still
remained. As now he stood there he fancied he saw something shining on
the ground. He stooped down and picked up the shining thing, and, lo and
behold! it was two feathers entirely of gold.[19]
When it was day he plucked the apples, placed them on a golden salver,
and with the golden feathers in his hat, went to find his father. The
Emperor, when he saw the apples, very nearly went out of his mind for
joy; but he controlled himself, and proclaimed throughout the city that
his youngest son had succeeded in saving the apples, and that the thief
was discovered to be a flock of birds.
Boy-Beautiful now asked his father to let him go and search out the
thief; but his father would hear of nothing but the long-desired apples,
which he was never tired of feasting his eyes upon.
But the youngest son of the Emperor was not to be put off, and
importuned his father till at last the Emperor, in order to get rid of
him, gave him leave to go and seek the thief. So he got ready, and when
he was about to depart, he took the golden feathers out of his cap, and
gave them to his mother, the Empress, to keep for him till he returned.
He took raiment and money for his journey, fastened his quiverful of
arrows to his back, and his sword on his right hip, and with his bow in
one hand and the reins in the other, and accompanied by a faithful
servant, set off on his way. He went on and on, along roads more and
more remote, till at last he came to a desert. Here he dismounted, and
taking counsel with his faithful servant, hit upon a road that led to
the east. They went on a good bit further, till they came to a vast and
dense wood. Through this tangle of a wood they had to grope their way
(and it was as much as they could do to do that), and presently they
saw, a long way off, a great and terrible wolf, with a head of steel.
They immediately prepared to defend themselves, and when they were
within bow-shot of the wolf, Boy-Beautiful put his bow to his eye.
The wolf seeing this, cried: “Stay thy hand, Boy-Beautiful, and slay me
not, and it will be well for thee one day!” Boy-Beautiful listened to
him, and let his bow fall, and the wolf drawing nigh, asked them where
they were going, and what they were doing in that wood, untrodden by the
foot of man. Then Boy-Beautiful told him the whole story of the golden
apples in his father’s garden, and said they were seeking after the
thief.
The wolf told him that the thief was the Emperor of the Birds, who,
whenever he set out to steal apples, took with him in his train all the
birds of swiftest flight, that so they might strip the orchards more
rapidly, and that these birds were to be found in the city on the
confines of this wood. He also told them that the whole household of the
Emperor of the Birds lived by the robbing of gardens and orchards; and
he showed them the nearest and easiest way to the city. Then giving
them a little apple most lovely to look upon, he said to them: “Accept
this apple, Boy-Beautiful! Whenever thou shouldst have need of me, look
at it and think of me, and immediately I’ll be with thee!”
Boy-Beautiful took the apple, and concealed it in his bosom, and bidding
the wolf good-day, struggled onwards with his faithful servant through
the thickets of the forest, till he came to the city where the
robber-bird dwelt. All through the city he went, asking where it was,
and they told him that the Emperor of that realm had it in a gold cage
in his garden.
That was all he wanted to know. He took a turn round the court of the
Emperor, and noted in his mind all the ramparts which surrounded the
court. When it was evening, he came thither with his faithful servant,
and hid himself in a corner, waiting till all the dwellers in the palace
had gone to rest. Then the faithful servant gave him a leg-up, and
Boy-Beautiful, mounting on his back, scaled the wall, and leaped down
into the garden. But the moment he put his hand on the cage, the Emperor
of the Birds chirped, and before you could say boo! he was surrounded by
a flock of birds, from the smallest to the greatest, all chirping in
their own tongues. They made such a noise that they awoke all the
servants of the Emperor. They rushed into the garden, and there they
found Boy-Beautiful, with the cage in his hand, and all the birds
darting at him, and he defending himself as best he could. The servants
laid their hands upon him, and led him to the Emperor, who had also got
up to see what was the matter.
“I am sorry to see thee thus, Boy-Beautiful,” cried the Emperor, for he
knew him. “If thou hadst come to me with good words, or with entreaties,
and asked me for the bird, I might, perhaps, have been persuaded to give
it to thee of my own good-will and pleasure; but as thou hast been taken
hand-in-sack, as they say, the reward of thy deed according to our laws
is death, and thy name will be covered with dishonour.”
“Illustrious Emperor,” replied Boy-Beautiful, “these same birds have
stolen the golden apples from the apple-tree of my father’s garden, and
therefore have I come all this way to lay hands on the thief.”
“What thou dost say may be true, Boy-Beautiful, but I have no power to
alter the laws of this land. Only a signal service rendered to our
empire can save thee from a shameful death.”
“Say what that service is, and I will venture it.”
“Listen then! If thou dost succeed in bringing me the saddle-horse in
the court of the Emperor my neighbour, thou wilt depart with thy face
unblackened, and thou shalt take the bird in its cage along with thee.”
Boy-Beautiful agreed to these conditions, and that same day he departed
with his faithful servant.
On reaching the court of the neighbouring Emperor he took note of the
horse and of all the environs of the court. Then as evening drew near,
he hid with his faithful servant in a corner of the court which seemed
to him to be a safe ambuscade. He saw the horse walked out between two
servants, and he marvelled at its beauty. It was white, its bridle was
of gold set with gems inestimable, and it shone like the sun.
In the middle of the night, when sleep is most sweet, Boy-Beautiful bade
his faithful servant stoop down, leaped on to his back, and from thence
on to the wall, and leaped down into the Emperor’s courtyard. He groped
his way along on the tips of his toes till he came to the stable, and
opening the door, put his hand on the bridle and drew the horse after
him. When the horse got to the door of the stable and sniffed the keen
air, it sneezed once with a mighty sneeze that awoke the whole court. In
an instant they all rushed out, laid hands on Boy-Beautiful, and led him
before the Emperor, who had also been aroused, and who when he saw
Boy-Beautiful knew him at once. He reproached him for the cowardly deed
he had nearly accomplished, and told him that the laws of the land
decreed death to all thieves, and
[Illustration: Boy-Beautiful and his Faithful Servant.--p. 252.]
that he had no power against those laws. Then Boy-Beautiful told him of
the theft of the golden apples by the birds, and of what the
neighbouring Emperor had told him to do. Then said the Emperor: “If,
Boy-Beautiful, thou canst bring me the divine Craiessa,[20] thou mayest
perhaps escape death, and thy name shall remain untarnished.”
Boy-Beautiful risked the adventure, and accompanied by his faithful
servant set off on his quest. While he was on the road, the thought of
the little apple occurred to him. He took it from his bosom, looked at
it, and thought of the wolf, and before he could wipe his eyes the wolf
was there.
“What dost thou desire, Boy-Beautiful?” said he.
“What do I desire, indeed!--look here, look here, look here, what has
happened to me! Whatever am I to do to get out of this mess with a good
conscience?”
“Rely upon me, for I see I must finish this business for thee.” So they
all three went on together to seek the divine Craiessa.
When they drew nigh to the land of the divine Craiessa they halted in
the midst of a vast forest, where they could see the Craiessa’s dazzling
palace, and it was agreed that Boy-Beautiful and his servant should
await the return of the wolf by the trunk of a large tree. The proud
palace of the divine Craiessa was so grand and beautiful, and the style
and arrangement thereof so goodly, that the wolf could scarce take his
eyes therefrom. But when he came up to the palace he did what he could,
and crept furtively into the garden.
And what do you think he saw there? Not a single fruit-tree was any
longer green. The stems, branches, and twigs stood there as if some one
had stripped them naked. The fallen leaves had turned the ground into a
crackling carpet. Only a single rose-bush was still covered with leaves
and full of buds, some wide open and some half closed. To reach this
rose-bush the wolf had to tread very gingerly on the tips of his toes,
so as not to make the carpet of dry leaves crackle beneath him; and so
he hid himself behind this leafy bush. As now he stood there on the
watch, the door of the dazzling palace was opened, and forth came the
divine Craiessa, attended by four-and-twenty of her slaves, to take a
walk in the garden.
When the wolf beheld her he was very near forgetting what he came for
and coming out of his lair, though he restrained himself; for she was so
lovely that the like of her never had been and never will be seen on the
face of the whole earth. Her hair was of nothing less than pure gold,
and reached from top to toe. Her long and silken eyelashes seemed
almost to put out her eyes. When she looked at you with those large
sloe-black eyes of hers, you felt sick with love. She had those
beautifully-arched eyebrows which look as if they had been traced with
compasses, and her skin was whiter than the froth of milk fresh from the
udder.
After taking two or three turns round the garden with her slaves behind
her, she came to the rose-bush and plucked one or two flowers, whereupon
the wolf who was concealed in the bush darted out, took her in his front
paws, and sped down the road. Her servants scattered like a bevy of
young partridges, and in an instant the wolf was there, and put her, all
senseless as she was, in the arms of Boy-Beautiful. When he saw her he
changed colour, but the wolf reminded him that he was a warrior and he
came to himself again. Many Emperors had tried to steal her, but they
had all been repulsed.
Boy-Beautiful had compassion upon her, and he now made up his mind that
nobody else should have her.
When the divine Craiessa awoke from her swoon and found herself in the
arms of Boy-Beautiful, she said: “If _thou_ art the wolf that hath
stolen me away, I’ll be thine.” Boy-Beautiful replied: “Mine thou shalt
be till death do us part.”
So they made a compact of it, and they told each other their stories.
When the wolf saw the tenderness that had grown up between them he said:
“Leave everything to me, and your desires shall be fulfilled!” Then they
set out to return from whence they had just come, and, while they were
on the road, the wolf turned three somersaults and made himself exactly
like the divine Craiessa, for you must know that this wolf was a
magician.
Then they arranged among themselves that the faithful servant of
Boy-Beautiful should stand by the trunk of a great tree in the forest
till Boy-Beautiful returned with the steed. So on reaching the court of
the Emperor who had the steed, Boy-Beautiful gave him the made-up divine
Craiessa, and when the Emperor saw her his heart died away within him,
and he felt a love for her which told in words would be foolishness.
“Thy merits, Boy-Beautiful,” said the Emperor, “have saved thee this
time also from a shameful death, and now I’ll pay thee for this by
giving thee the steed.” Then Boy-Beautiful put his hand on the steed and
leaped into the jewelled saddle, and, reaching the tree, placed the
divine Craiessa in front of him and galloped across the boundaries of
that empire.
And now the Emperor called together all his counsellors and went to the
cathedral to be married to the divine Craiessa. When they got to the
door of the cathedral, the pretended Craiessa turned a somersault three
times and became a wolf again, which, gnashing its teeth, rushed
straight at the Emperor’s retinue, who were stupefied with terror when
they saw it. On coming to themselves a little, they gave chase with
hue-and-cry: but the wolf, take my word for it! took such long strides
that not one of them could come near him, and joining Boy-Beautiful and
his friends went along with them. When they drew nigh to the court of
the Emperor with the bird, they played him the same trick they had
played on the Emperor with the horse. The wolf changed himself into the
horse, and was given to the Emperor, who could not contain himself for
joy at the sight of it.
After entertaining Boy-Beautiful with great honour, the Emperor said to
him: “Boy-Beautiful, thou hast escaped a shameful death. I will keep my
imperial word and my blessing shall always follow thee.” Then he
commanded them to give him the bird in the golden cage, and
Boy-Beautiful took it, wished him good-day, and departed. Arriving in
the wood where he had left the divine Craiessa, his horse, and his
faithful servant, he set off with them for the court of his father.
But the Emperor who had received the horse commanded that his whole host
and all the grandees of his empire should assemble in the plain to see
him mount his richly-caparisoned goodly steed. And when the soldiers
saw him they all cried: “Long live the Emperor who hath won such a
goodly steed, and long live the steed that doth the Emperor so much
honour!”
And, indeed, there was the Emperor mounting on the back of the horse,
but no sooner did it put its foot to the ground than it flew right away.
They all set off in pursuit, but there was never the slightest chance of
any of them catching it, for it left them far behind from the first.
When it had got a good way ahead the pretended horse threw the Emperor
to the ground, turned head over heels three times and became a wolf, and
set off again in full flight, and ran and ran till it overtook
Boy-Beautiful. Then said the wolf to him: “I have now fulfilled all thy
demands. Look to thyself better in future, and strive not after things
beyond thy power, or it will not go well with thee.” Then their roads
parted, and each of them went his own way.
When he arrived at the empire of his father the old Emperor came out to
meet his youngest son with small and great as he had agreed. Great was
the public joy when they saw him with a consort the like of whom is no
longer to be found on the face of the earth, and with a steed the
excellence whereof lives only in the tales of the aged. When he got
home Boy-Beautiful ordered a splendid stable to be made for his good
steed, and put the bird-cage in the terrace of the garden. Then his
father prepared for the wedding, and after not many days Boy-Beautiful
and the divine Craiessa were married; the tables were spread for good
and bad, and they made merry for three days and three nights. After that
they lived in perfect happiness, for Boy-Beautiful had now nothing more
to desire. And they are living to this day, if they have not died in the
meantime.
And now I’ll mount my steed again and say an “Our Father” before I go.
YOUTH WITHOUT AGE, AND LIFE WITHOUT DEATH
Once upon a time there was a great Emperor and an Empress; both were
young and beautiful, and as they would fain have been blessed with
offspring they went to all the wise men and all the wise women and bade
them read the stars to see if they would have children or not; but all
in vain. At last the Emperor heard that in a certain village, hard by,
dwelt a wiser old man than all the rest; so he sent and commanded him to
appear at court. But the wise old man sent the messengers back with the
answer that those who needed him must come to him. So the Emperor and
the Empress set out, with their lords and their ladies, and their
servants and their soldiers, and came to the house of the wise old man.
And when the old man saw them coming from afar he went out to meet them.
“Welcome,” cried he; “but I tell thee, oh Emperor! that the wish of thy
heart will only work thee woe.”
“I came not hither to take counsel of thee,” replied the Emperor; “but
to know if thou hast herbs by eating whereof we may get us children.”
“Such herbs have I,” replied the old man; “but ye will have but one
child, and him ye will not be able to keep, though he be never so nice
and charming.”
So when the Emperor and the Empress had gotten the wondrous herbs, they
returned joyfully back to their palace, and a few days afterwards the
Empress felt that she was a mother. But ere the hour of her child’s
birth came the child began to scream so loudly that all the enchantments
of the magicians could not make him silent. Then the Emperor began to
promise him everything in the wide world, but even this would not quiet
him.
“Be silent, my heart’s darling,” said he, “and I will give thee all the
kingdoms east of the sun and west of the moon! Be silent, my son, and I
will give thee a consort more lovely than the Fairy Queen herself.” Then
at last, when he perceived that the child still kept on screaming, he
said: “Silence, my son, and I will give thee Youth without Age, and Life
without Death.”
Then the child ceased to cry and came into the world, and all the
courtiers beat the drums and blew the trumpets, and there was great joy
in the whole realm for many days.
The older the child grew the more pensive and melancholy he became. He
went to school and to the wise men, and there was no learning and wisdom
that he did not make his own, so that the Emperor, his father, died and
came to life again for sheer joy. And the whole realm was proud that it
was going to have so wise and goodly an Emperor, and all men looked up
to him as to a second Solomon. But one day, when the child had already
completed his fifteenth year, and the Emperor and all his lords and
great men were at table diverting themselves, the fair young prince
arose and said: “Father, the time has now come when thou must give me
what thou didst promise me at my birth!”
At these words the Emperor was sorely troubled. “Nay but, my son,” said
he, “how can I give thee a thing which the world has never heard of? If
I did promise it to thee, it was but to make thee quiet.”
“Then, oh my father, if thou canst not give it me, I must needs go forth
into the world, and seek until I find that fair thing for which I was
born.”
Then the Emperor and his nobles all fell down on their knees, and
besought him not to leave the empire. “For,” said the nobles, “thy
father is now growing old, and we would place thee on the throne, and
give thee to wife the most beautiful Empress under the sun.” But they
were unable to turn him from his purpose, for he was as steadfast as a
rock, so at last his father gave him leave to go forth into the wide
world to find what he sought.
Then Boy Beautiful went into his father’s stables, where were the most
beautiful chargers in the whole empire, that he might choose one from
among them; but no sooner had he laid his hand on one of them than it
fell to the ground trembling, and so it was with all the other stately
chargers. At last, just as he was about to leave the stable in despair,
he cast his eye over it once more, and there in one corner he beheld a
poor knacker, all weak, spavined, and covered with boils and sores. Up
to it he went, and laid his hand upon its tail, and then the horse
turned its head and said to him: “What are thy commands, my master? God
be praised who hath had mercy upon me and sent a warrior to lay his hand
over me!”
Then the horse shook itself and became straight in the legs again, and
Boy Beautiful asked him what he should do next.
“In order that thou mayest attain thy heart’s desire,” said the horse,
“ask thy father for the sword and lance, the bow, quiver, and armour
which he himself wore when he was a youth; but thou must comb and curry
me with thine own hand six weeks, and give me barley to eat cooked in
milk.”
So the Emperor called the steward of his household, and ordered him to
open all the coffers and wardrobes that his son might choose what he
would, and Boy Beautiful, after searching for three days and three
nights, found at last at the bottom of an old armoury, the arms and
armour which his father had worn as a youth, but very rusty were these
ancient weapons. But he set to work with his own hands to polish them up
and rub off the rust, and at the end of six weeks they shone like
mirrors. He also cherished the steed as he had been told. Grievous was
the labour, but it came to an end at last.
When the good steed heard that Boy Beautiful had cleansed and polished
his armour, he shook himself once more, and all his boils and sores fell
from off him. There he now stood a stout horse, and strong, and with
four large wings growing out of his body. Then said Boy Beautiful: “We
go hence in three days!”--“Long life to thee, my master!” replied the
steed; “I will go wherever thou dost command.”
When the third day came the Emperor and all his court were full of
grief. Boy Beautiful, attired as became a hero, with his sword in his
hand, bounded on to his horse, took leave of the Emperor and the
Empress, of all the great nobles and all the little nobles, of all the
warriors and all the courtiers. With tears in their eyes they besought
him not to depart on this quest; but he, giving spurs to his horse,
departed like a whirlwind, and after him went sumpter horses with money
and provisions, and some hundreds of chosen warriors whom the Emperor
had ordered to accompany him on his journey.
But when he had searched a wilderness on the confines of his father’s
realm, Boy Beautiful took leave of the warriors, and sent them back to
his father, taking of the provisions only so much as his good steed
could carry. Then he pursued his way towards sunrise, and went on and on
for three days and three nights till he came to an immense plain covered
with the bones of many dead men. Here they stopped to rest, and the
horse said to him: “Know, my master, that we are now in the domains of
the witch Gheonoea, who is so evil a being that none can set a foot on
her domains and live. Once she was a woman like other women, but the
curse of her parents, whom she would never obey, fell like a withering
blast upon her, and she became what she now is. At this moment she is
with her children in the forest, but she will come speedily to seek and
destroy thee. Great and terrible is she, yet fear not, but make ready
thy bow and arrows, thy sword and lance, that thou mayest make use of
them when the time comes.”--Then they rested, and while one slept the
other watched.
When the day dawned they prepared to traverse the forest; Boy Beautiful
bridled and saddled his horse, drew the reins tighter than at other
times, and set out. At that moment they heard a terrible racket. Then
the horse said: “Beware, my master, Gheonoea is approaching.” The trees
of the forest fell to this side and to that as the witch drew nigh like
the tempest, but Boy Beautiful struck off one of her feet with an arrow
from his bow, and he was about to shoot a second time when she cried:
“Stay thy hand, Boy Beautiful, for I’ll do thee no harm!” And seeing he
did not believe her, she gave him a promise written in her blood.
“Look well to thy horse, Boy Beautiful,” said she, “for he is a greater
magician than I. But for him I should have roasted thee, but now thou
must dine at my table. Know too that no mortal hath yet succeeded in
reaching this spot, though some have got so far as the plain where thou
didst see all the bones.”
Then Gheonoea hospitably entertained Boy Beautiful as men entertain
travellers, but now and then, as they conversed together, Gheonoea
groaned with pain, but as soon as Boy Beautiful threw her her foot which
he had shot off, she put it in its place and immediately it grew fast on
to her leg again. Then, in her joy, Gheonoea feasted him for three days
and begged him to take for his consort one of her three daughters, who
were divinely beautiful, but he would not. Then he asked her concerning
his quest. “With such valour and such a good steed as thine,” she
answered, “thou must needs succeed.”
So after the three days were over they went on their way again. Boy
Beautiful went on and on, and the way was very long, but when they had
passed the boundaries of Gheonoea they came to a beauteous meadow-land,
but on one side the grass was fresh and bright and full of flowers, and
on the other side it was burnt to cinders. Then Boy Beautiful asked the
horse the meaning of the singed grass, and this is what the horse
replied: “We are now in the territories of Scorpia, the sister of
Gheonoea. Yet so evil-minded are these two sisters that they cannot live
together in one place. The curse of their parents has blasted them, and
they have become witches as thou dost see; their hatred of each other is
great, and each of them is ever striving to wrest a bit of land from the
dominions of the other. And when Scorpia is angry she vomits forth fire
and flame, and so when she comes to her sister’s boundaries the grass of
the border withers up before her. She is even more dreadful than her
sister, and has, besides, three heads; but be of good cheer, my master,
and to-morrow morning be ready to meet her.”
At dawn, next day, they were preparing to depart when they heard a
roaring and a crashing noise, the like of which man has never heard
since the world began.
“Be ready, my master, for now Scorpia is approaching,” cried the
faithful steed.
And indeed, Scorpia it was. With jaws reaching from earth to heaven, and
spitting forth fire as she approached, Scorpia drew near, and the noise
of her coming was like the roar of a whirlwind. But the good steed rose
into the air like a dart, and Boy Beautiful shot an arrow which struck
off one of the witch’s three heads. He was about to lay another arrow on
his bow, when Scorpia begged him to forgive her and she would do him no
harm, and by way of assurance she gave him a promise written in her
blood.
Then she feasted him as her sister had done before, and he gave her back
her severed head, which she stuck in its place again, and then, after
three days, Boy Beautiful and his faithful steed took to the road again.
When they had crossed Scorpia’s borders they went on and on without
stopping till they came to a vast meadow covered with nothing but
flowers, where Spring reigned eternally. Every flower was wondrously
beautiful and full of a fragrance that comforted the soul, and a light
zephyr ran continually over the flowery billows. Here then they sat
them down to rest, and the good steed said:
“Hitherto, oh my master! we have prospered, but now a great danger
awaits us, which if by the help of the Lord God we overcome, then shall
we be heroes indeed. Not far from here stands the palace of Youth
without Age, and Life without Death, but it is surrounded by a high and
deep forest, and in this forest are all the savage monsters of the wide
world. Day and night they guard it, and if a man can count the grains of
sand on the sea-shore, then also can he count the number of these
monsters. We cannot fight them, they would tear us to pieces before we
were half-way through the forest, so we must try if we can leap clean
over it without touching it.”
So they rested them two days to gather strength, and then the steed drew
a long breath and said to Boy Beautiful: “Draw my saddle-girths as
tightly as thou art able, and when thou hast mounted me, hold on fast
with all thy might to my mane, and press thy feet on my neck instead of
on my flanks, that thou mayest not hinder me.”
Boy Beautiful arose and did as his steed told him, and the next moment
they were close up to the forest.
“Now is the time, my master,” cried the good steed. “The wild monsters
are now being fed, and are gathered together in one place. Now let us
spring over!”
“I am with thee, and the Lord have mercy upon us both,” replied Boy
Beautiful.
Then up in the air they flew, and before them lay the palace, and so
gloriously bright was it that a man could sooner look into the face of
the midday sun than upon the glory of the Palace of Youth without Age,
and Life without Death. Right over the forest they flew, and just as
they were about to descend at the foot of the palace-staircase, the
steed with the tip of his hind leg touched lightly, oh, ever so lightly!
a twig on the topmost summit of the tallest tree of the forest.
Instantly the whole forest was alive and alert, and the monsters began
to howl so awfully that, brave as he was, the hair of Boy Beautiful
stood up on his head. Hastily they descended, but had not the mistress
of the palace been outside there in order to feed her kittens (for so
she called the monsters), Boy Beautiful and his faithful steed would
have been torn to pieces. But the mistress of the monsters, for pure joy
at the sight of a human being, held the monsters back and sent them back
to their places. Fair, tall, and of goodly stature was the Fairy of the
Palace, and Boy Beautiful felt his heart die away within him as he
beheld her. But she was full of compassion at the sight of him, and
said: “Welcome, Boy Beautiful! What dost thou seek?”
“We seek Youth without Age, and Life without Death,” he replied.
Then he dismounted from his steed and entered the palace, and there he
met two other fair dames of equal beauty; these were the elder sisters
of the Fairy of the Palace. They regaled Boy Beautiful with a banquet
served on gold plate, and the good steed had leave to graze where he
would, and the Fairy made him known to all her monsters, that so he
might wander through the woods in peace. Then the fair dames begged Boy
Beautiful to abide with them always, and Boy Beautiful did not wait to
be asked twice, for to stay with the Fairy of the Palace was his darling
desire.
Then he told them his story, and of all the dangers he had passed
through to get there, and so the Fairy of the Palace became his bride,
and she gave him leave to roam at will throughout her domains.
“Nevertheless,” said she, “there is one valley thou must not enter or it
will work thee woe, and the name of that valley is the Vale of
Complaint.”
There then Boy Beautiful abode, and he took no count of time, for though
many days passed away, he was yet as young and strong as when he first
came there. He went through leagues of forest without once feeling
weary. He rejoiced in the golden palace, and lived in peace and
tranquillity with his bride and her sisters. Oftentimes too he went
a-hunting.
One day he was pursuing a hare, and shot an arrow after it and then
another, but neither of them hit the hare. Never before had Boy
Beautiful missed his prey, and his heart was vexed within him. He
pursued the hare still more hotly, and sent another arrow after her.
This time he did bring her down, but in his haste the unhappy man had
not perceived that in following the hare he had passed through the Vale
of Complaint!
He took up the hare and returned homewards, but while he was still on
the way a strange yearning after his father and his mother came over
him. He durst not tell his bride of it, but she and her sisters
immediately guessed the cause of his heaviness.
“Wretched man!” they cried, “thou hast passed through the Vale of
Complaint!”
“I have done so, darling, without meaning it,” he replied; “but now I am
perishing with longing for my father and mother. Yet need I desert thee
for that? I have now been many days with thee, and am as hale and well
as ever. Suffer me then to go and see my parents but once, and then will
I return to thee to part no more.”
“Forsake us not, oh beloved!” cried his bride and her sisters. “Hundreds
of years have passed away since thy parents were alive; and thou also,
if thou dost leave us, wilt never return more. Abide with us, or, an
evil omen tells us, thou wilt perish!”
But the supplications of the three ladies and his faithful steed
likewise could not prevail against the gnawing longing to see his
parents which consumed him.
At last the horse said to him: “If thou wilt not listen to me, my
master, then ’tis thine own fault alone if evil befall thee. Yet I will
promise to bring thee back on one condition.”
“I consent whatever it may be,” said Boy Beautiful; “speak, and I will
listen gratefully.”
“I will bring thee back to thy father’s palace, but if thou dismount but
for a moment, I shall return without thee.”
“Be it so,” replied Boy Beautiful.
So they made them ready for their journey, and Boy Beautiful embraced
his bride and departed, but the ladies stood there looking after him,
and their eyes were filled with tears.
And now Boy Beautiful and his faithful steed came to the place where the
domains of Scorpia had been, but the forests had become fields of corn,
and cities stood thickly on what had once been desolate places. Boy
Beautiful asked all whom he met concerning Scorpia and her habitations,
but they only answered that these were but idle fables which their
grandfathers had heard from their great-grandfathers.
“But how is that possible?” replied Boy Beautiful; “‘twas but the other
day that I passed by----” and he told them all he knew. Then they
laughed at him as at one who raves or talks in his sleep; but he rode
away wrathfully without noticing that his beard and the hair of his head
had grown white.
When he came to the domain of Gheonoea he put the same questions and
received the same answers. He could not understand how the whole region
could have utterly changed in a few days, and again he rode away, full
of anger, with a white beard that now reached down to his girdle and
with legs that began to tremble beneath him.
At length he came to the empire of his father. Here there were new men
and new dwellings, and the old ones had so altered that he scarce knew
them.
So he came to the palace where he had first seen the light of day. As he
dismounted the horse kissed his hand and said: “Fare thee well, my
master! I return from whence I came. But if thou also wouldst return,
mount again and we’ll be off instantly.”
“Nay,” he replied, “fare thee well, I also will return soon.”
Then the horse flew away like a dart.
But when Boy Beautiful beheld the palace all in ruins and overgrown
with evil weeds, he sighed deeply, and with tears in his eyes he sought
to recall the glories of that fallen palace. Round about the place he
went, not once nor twice: he searched in every room, in every corner for
some vestige of the past; he searched the stable in which he had found
his steed, and then he went down into the cellar, the entrance to which
was choked up by fallen rubbish.
Here and there and everywhere he searched about, and now his long white
beard reached below his knee, and his eyelids were so heavy that he had
to raise them on high with his hands, and he found he could scarce
totter along. All he found there was a huge old coffer which he opened,
but inside it there was nothing. Yet he lifted up the cover, and then a
voice spoke to him out of the depths of the coffer and said: “Welcome,
for hadst thou kept me waiting much longer, I also would have perished.”
Then his Death, who was already shrivelled up like a withered leaf at
the bottom of the coffer, rose up and laid his hand upon him, and Boy
Beautiful instantly fell dead to the ground and crumbled into dust. But
had he remained away but a little time longer his Death would have died,
and he himself would have been living now. And so I mount my nag and
utter an “Our Father” ere I go.
THE END
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON & BUNGAY.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] He has described his experience in the picturesque and popular
_Anatóliai Képek_ (“Anatolian Pictures”) published at Pest in 1891.
[2] Emperor.
[3] Fairy.
[4] “Peace be unto you.”
[5] “Unto you be peace.”
[6] Farthings.
[7] Roasted pepper.
[8] _Lit._ the place of the mill was cold one morning.
[9] Counsellor.
[10] The same incident occurs in the Cossack fairy-tale of the Bird
Zhar and the Russian fairy-tale of the Bird Mogol.
[11] Boiled rice, with flesh added and scalded butter.
[12] Turkish for the Chinese Empire.
[13] Fate.
[14] Emperor of China.
[15] Farthing.
[16] An Imperial rescript.
[17] An unbeliever.
[18] _Fet frumosŭ_, the favourite name for all young heroes in
Roumanian fairy-tales.
[19] Compare the incident of the Bird Zhar in my _Russian Fairy Tales_.
[20] Queen.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Turkish fairy tales and folk tales collected by Dr. Ignácz Kúnos - Translated from the Hungarian version by R. Nisbet Bain. Illustrated by Celia Levetus." ***
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