A clever Magyar is introduced with his companions in disguise
into the camp of the king of the T�t�rs, who is menacing his
country. The prince, suspicious, causes him to be carefully
watched by his mother, a skilful sorceress. They brought in the
evening's repast. "What good wine the prince has!" said she.
"Yes," replied one, "but it contains human blood." The sorceress
took note of the bed from whence these words proceeded, and when
all were asleep she deftly cut a lock of hair from him who had
spoken, crept stealthily out of the room, and brought this mark
to her son. The strangers started up, and when our hero
discovered what had been done to him, he cut a lock from all, to
render his detection impossible. When they came to dinner, the
king knew not from whom the lock had been taken. The following
night the mother of the prince again slipped into the room, and
said, "What good bread has the prince of the T�t�rs!" "Very
good," replied one, "it is made with the milk of a woman." When
all were asleep, she cut a little off the moustache of him who
was lying in the bed from which the voice proceeded. This time
the Magyars were still more on the alert, and when they were
apprised of the matter, they all cut a little from their
moustaches, so that next morning the prince found himself again
foiled. The third night the old lady hid herself, and said in a
loud voice, "What a handsome man is the prince of the T�t�rs!"
"Yes," replied one, "but he is a bastard." When all were asleep,
the old lady made a mark on the visor of the helmet of the one
from whence had come the words, and then acquainted her son of
what she had done. In the morning the prince perceived that all
the helmets were similarly marked.[FN#502] At length he
refrained, and said, "I see that there is among you a master
greater than myself; that is why I desire very earnestly to know
him. He may make himself known; I should like to see and know
this extraordinary man, who is more clever and powerful than
myself." The young man started up from his seat and said, "I
have not wished to be stronger or wiser than yourself. I have
only wished to find out what you had preconcerted for us. I am
the person who has been marked three nights." "It is well, young
man. But prove now your words: How is there human blood in the
wine?" "Call your butler and he will tell you." The butler came
in trembling all over, and confessed that when he corked the wine
he had cut his finger with the knife, and a drop of blood had
fallen into the cask. "But how is there woman's milk in the
bread?" asked the king. "Call the bakeress," he replied, "and
she will tell it you." When they questioned her, she confessed
that she was kneading the bread and at the same time suckling her
baby, and that on pressing it to her breast some milk flowed and
was mixed with the bread. The sorceress, the mother of the king,
when they came to the third revelation of the young man,
confessed in her turn that the king was illegitimate.
Mr. Tawney refers to the Chevalier de Mailly's version of the
Three Princes of Serendip (Ceylon): The three are sitting at
table, and eating a leg of lamb, sent with some splendid wine
from the table of the emperor Bahr�m. The eldest maintains that
the wine was made of grapes that grew in a cemetery; the second,
that the lamb was brought up on dog's milk; while the third
asserts that the emperor had put to death the son of the waz�r.
And that the latter is bent on vengeance. All these statements
turn out to be well-grounded. Mr. Tawney also refers to parallel
stories in the Breslau edition of The Nights; namely, in Night
458, it is similarly conjectured that the bread was baked by a
sick woman; that the kid was suckled by a bitch, and that the
sultan is illegitimate; and in Night 459, a gem-cutter guesses
that a jewel has an internal flaw, a man skilled in the pedigrees
of horses divines that a horse is the offspring of a female
buffalo, and a man skilled in human pedigrees that the mother of
the favourite queen was a rope-dancer. Similar incidents occur
in "The Sultan of Yemen and his Three Sons," one of the
Additional Tales translated by Scott, from the Wortley-Montague
MS., now in the Bodleian Library, and comprised in vol. vi. of
his edition of "The Arabian Nights Entertainments," published at
London in 1811.
An analogous tale occurs in Mr. E. J. W. Gibb's recently-
published translation of the "History of the Forty Vezirs (the
Lady's Fourth Story, p. 69 ff.), the motif of which is that "all
things return to their origin:"