tremble and, although the shepherd tried to look into her eyes to
reassure her, she kept her head averted.
This time the Tsar himself and many of his courtiers had gone on before
and taken their stand on the hill that overlooked the lake to see the
final combat of the shepherd and the dragon.
When the shepherd and the Princess reached the lake, the shepherd put
his falcon on the log as before and tied the dogs beside it and laid his
bagpipes on the ground. Then he threw off his smock, rolled up his hose,
and wading boldly into the lake called out in a loud voice:
"Ho, dragon, come out and we'll try a wrestling match! That is, if
you're not afraid!"
"Afraid?" bellowed an awful voice. "Who's afraid?"
[Illustration: _Next Morning the Princess Peeped Out and Saw the
Shepherd_]
The water of the lake churned this way and that and the horrible scaly
monster came to the surface. He crawled to shore and clutched the
shepherd around the waist. The shepherd clutched him in a grip just
as strong and there they swayed back and forth and rolled over and
wrestled together on the shore of the lake without either getting the
better of the other. The Princess without the least show of fear stood
nearby calling out encouragement to the shepherd and waiting for the
moment when the shepherd should need her help.
By midafternoon when the sun was hot, the dragon grew faint and cried
out:
"Oh, if I could but dip my burning head in the cool water, then I could
toss you as high as the sky!"
"Don't talk nonsense!" the shepherd said. "If the Tsar's daughter would
kiss my forehead then I could toss you twice as high!"
Instantly the Princess ran forward and kissed the shepherd three times.
The first kiss fell on his forehead, the second on his nose, the third
on his mouth. With each kiss his strength increased an hundredfold and
taking the dragon in a mighty grip he tossed him up so high that for a
moment the Tsar and all the courtiers lost sight of him in the sky. Then
he fell to earth with such a thud that he burst.
Out of his body sprang a wild boar. The shepherd was ready for this and
on the moment he unleashed the two hounds and they fell on the boar and
tore him to pieces.
Out of the boar jumped a rabbit. It went leaping across the meadow but
the dogs caught it and killed it.
Out of the rabbit flew a pigeon. Instantly the shepherd unloosed the
falcon. It rose high in the air, then swooped down upon the pigeon,
clutched it in its talons, and delivered it into the shepherd's hands.
He cut open the pigeon and found the sparrow.
"Spare me! Spare me!" squawked the sparrow.
"Tell me where my brothers are," the shepherd demanded with his fingers
about the sparrow's throat.
"Your brothers? They are alive and in the deep dungeon that lies below
the Old Mill. Behind the mill there are three willow saplings growing
from one old root. Cut the saplings and strike the root. A heavy iron
door leading down into the dungeon will open. In the dungeon you will
find many captives old and young, your brothers among them. Now that I
have told you this are you going to spare my life?"
But the shepherd wrung the sparrow's neck for he knew that only in that
way could the monster who had captured his brothers be killed.
Well, now that the dragon was dead the Tsar and all his courtiers came
down from the hill and embraced the shepherd and told him what a brave
youth he was.
"You have delivered us all from a horrid monster," the Tsar said, "and
to show you my gratitude and the country's gratitude I offer you my
daughter for wife."
"Thank you," said the shepherd, "but I couldn't think of marrying the
Princess unless she is willing to marry me."
The Princess blushed and trembled just as she had blushed and trembled
the night before and that morning, too, on the way to the lake. She
tried to speak but could not at first. Then in a very little voice she
said:
"As a Princess I think it is my duty to marry this brave shepherd who
has delivered my country from this terrible dragon, and--and I think I
should want to marry him anyway."
She said the last part of her speech in such a very low voice that only
the shepherd himself heard it. But that was right enough because after
all it was intended only for him.
So then and there beside the lake before even the shepherd had time to
wash his face and hands and put on his smock the Tsar put the Princess's
hand in his hand and pronounced them betrothed.
After that the shepherd bathed in the lake and then refreshed and clean
he sounded his bagpipes and he and the Princess and the Tsar and all the
courtiers returned to the city driving the sheep before them.
All the townspeople came out to meet them and they danced to the music
of the bagpipes and there was great rejoicing both over the death of the
dragon and over the betrothal of the Princess and the brave shepherd.
The wedding took place at once and the wedding festivities lasted a
week. Such feasting as the townspeople had! Such music and dancing!
When the wedding festivities were ended, the shepherd told the Tsar who
he really was.
"You say you're a Prince!" the Tsar cried, perfectly delighted at this
news. Then he declared he wasn't in the least surprised. In fact, he
said, he had suspected as much from the first!
"Do you think it likely," he asked somewhat pompously, "that any
daughter of mine would fall in love with a man who wasn't a prince?"
"I think I'd have fallen in love with you whatever you were!" whispered
the Princess to her young husband. But she didn't let her father hear
her!
The Prince told the Tsar about his brothers' captivity and how he must
go home to release them, and the Tsar at once said that he and his
bride might go provided they returned as soon as possible.
They agreed to this and the Tsar fitted out a splendid escort for them
and sent them away with his blessing.
So the Prince now traveled back through the towns and villages of three
kingdoms, across rivers and over mountains, no longer a humble shepherd
on foot, but a rich and mighty personage riding in a manner that
befitted his rank.
When he reached the deserted mill, his friend the old woman was waiting
for him.
"I know, my Prince, you have succeeded for the monster has disappeared."
"Yes, granny, you are right: I have succeeded. I found the dragon in the
lake, and the boar in the dragon, and the rabbit in the boar, and the
pigeon in the rabbit, and the sparrow in the pigeon. I took the sparrow
and killed it. So you are free now, granny, to return to your home. And
soon all those other poor captives will be free."
He went behind the mill and found the three willow saplings. He cut them
off and struck the old root. Sure enough a heavy iron door opened. This
led down into a deep dungeon which was crowded with unfortunate
prisoners. The Prince led them all out and sent them their various ways.
He found his own two brothers among them and led them home to his
father.
There was great rejoicing in the King's house, and in the King's heart,
too, for he had given up hope of ever seeing any of his sons again.
The King was so charmed with the Princess that he said it was a pity
that she couldn't marry his oldest son so that she might one day be
Queen.
"The Youngest Prince is a capable young man," the King said, "and
there's no denying that he managed this business of killing the dragon
very neatly. But he is after all only the Youngest Prince with very
little hope of succeeding to the kingdom. If you hadn't married him in
such haste one of his older brothers might easily have fallen in love
with you."
"I don't regret my haste," the Princess said. "Besides he is now my
father's heir. But that doesn't matter for I should be happy with the
Youngest Prince if he were only a shepherd."
THE LITTLE SINGING FROG
[Illustration]
_The Story of a Girl Whose Parents Were Ashamed of Her_
THE LITTLE SINGING FROG
There was once a poor laborer and his wife who had no children. Every
day the woman would sigh and say:
"If only we had a child!"
Then the man would sigh, too, and say:
"It would be pleasant to have a little daughter, wouldn't it?"
At last they went on a pilgrimage to a holy shrine and there they prayed
God to give them a child.
"Any kind of a child!" the woman prayed. "I'd be thankful for a child of
our own even if it were a frog!"
God heard their prayer and sent them a little daughter--not a little
girl daughter, however, but a little frog daughter. They loved their
little frog child dearly and played with her and laughed and clapped
their hands as they watched her hopping about the house. But when the
neighbors came in and whispered: "Why, that child of theirs is nothing
but a frog!" they were ashamed and they decided that when people were
about they had better keep their child hidden in a closet.
So the frog girl grew up without playmates of her own age, seeing only
her father and mother. She used to play about her father as he worked.
He was a vine-dresser in a big vineyard and of course it was great fun
for the little frog girl to hop about among the vines.
Every day at noontime the woman used to come to the vineyard carrying
her husband's dinner in a basket. The years went by and she grew old and
feeble and the daily trip to the vineyard began to tire her and the
basket seemed to her to grow heavier and heavier.
"Let me help you, mother," the frog daughter said. "Let me carry
father's dinner to him and you sit home and rest."
So from that time on the frog girl instead of the old woman carried the
dinner basket to the vineyard. While the old man ate, the frog girl
would hop up into the branches of a tree and sing. She sang very sweetly
and her old father, when he petted her, used to call her his Little
Singing Frog.
Now one day while she was singing the Tsar's Youngest Son rode by and
heard her. He stopped his horse and looked this way and that but for the
life of him he couldn't see who it was who was singing so sweetly.
"Who is singing?" he asked the old man.
But the old man who, as I told you before, was ashamed of his frog
daughter before strangers, at first pretended not to hear and then, when
the young Prince repeated his question, answered gruffly:
"There's no one singing!"
But the next day at the same hour when the Prince was again riding by he
heard the same sweet voice and he stopped again and listened.
"Surely, old man," he said, "there is some one singing! It is a lovely
girl, I know it is! Why, if I could find her, I'd be willing to marry
her at once and take her home to my father, the Tsar!"
"Don't be rash, young man," the laborer said.
"I mean what I say!" the Prince declared. "I'd marry her in a minute!"
"Are you sure you would?"
"Yes, I'm sure!"
"Very well, then, we'll see."
The old man looked up into the tree and called:
"Come down, Little Singing Frog! A Prince wants to marry you!"
So the little frog girl hopped down from among the branches and stood
before the Prince.
"She's my own daughter," the laborer said, "even if she does look like a
frog."
"I don't care what she looks like," the Prince said. "I love her
singing and I love her. And I mean what I say: I'll marry her if she'll
marry me. My father, the Tsar, bids me and my brothers present him our
brides to-morrow. He bids all the brides bring him a flower and he says
he'll give the kingdom to the prince whose bride brings the loveliest
flower. Little Singing Frog, will you be my bride and will you come to
Court to-morrow bringing a flower?"
"Yes, my Prince," the frog girl said, "I will. But I must not shame you
by hopping to Court in the dust. I must ride. So, will you send me a
snow-white cock from your father's barnyard?"
"I will," the Prince promised, and before night the snow-white cock had
arrived at the laborer's cottage.
Early the next morning the frog girl prayed to the Sun.
"O golden Sun," she said, "I need your help! Give me some lovely clothes
woven of your golden rays for I would not shame my Prince when I go to
Court."
The Sun heard her prayer and gave her a gown of cloth of gold.
Instead of a flower she took a spear of wheat in her hand and then when
the time came she mounted the white cock and rode to the palace.
[Illustration: _This, the Bride of the Youngest Prince, Is My Choice_]
The guards at the palace gate at first refused to admit her.
"This is no place for frogs!" they said to her. "You're looking for a
pond!"
But when she told them she was the Youngest Prince's bride, they were
afraid to drive her away. So they let her ride through the gate.
"Strange!" they murmured to one another. "The Youngest Prince's bride!
She looks like a frog and that was certainly a cock she was riding,
wasn't it?"
They stepped inside the gates to look after her and then they saw an
amazing sight. The frog girl, still seated on the white cock, was
shaking out the folds of a golden gown. She dropped the gown over her
head and instantly there was no frog and no white cock but a lovely
maiden mounted on a snow-white horse!
Well, the frog girl entered the palace with two other girls, the
promised brides of the older princes. They were just ordinary girls both
of them. To see them you wouldn't have paid any attention to them one
way or the other. But standing beside the lovely bride of the Youngest
Prince they seemed more ordinary than ever.
The first girl had a rose in her hand. The Tsar looked at it and at her,
sniffed his nose slightly, and turned his head.
The second girl had a carnation. The Tsar looked at her for a moment and
murmured:
"Dear me, this will never do!"
Then he looked at the Youngest Prince's bride and his eye kindled and he
said:
"Ah! This is something like!"
She gave him the spear of wheat and he took it and held it aloft. Then
he reached out his other hand to her and had her stand beside him as he
said to his sons and all the Court:
"This, the bride of the Youngest Prince, is my choice! See how beautiful
she is! And yet she knows the useful as well as the beautiful for she
has brought me a spear of wheat! The Youngest Prince shall be the Tsar
after me and she shall be Tsarina!"
So the little frog girl of whom her parents were ashamed married the
Youngest Prince and when the time came wore a Tsarina's crown.
[Illustration]
THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE MOSQUE
[Illustration]
_The Story of the Sultan's Youngest Son and the Princess Flower o' the
World_
THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE MOSQUE
There was once a Sultan who was so pious and devout that he spent many
hours every day in prayer.
"For the glory of Allah," he thought to himself, "I ought to build the
most beautiful mosque in the world."
So he called together the finest artisans in the country and told them
what he wanted. He spent a third of his riches on the undertaking, and
when the mosque was finished everybody said:
"See now, our Sultan has built the most beautiful mosque in the world
for the greater glory of Allah!"
On the first day when the Sultan went to pray in the new mosque, a
Dervish who was sitting cross-legged at the entrance spoke to him in a
droning sing-song voice and said:
"Nay, but your mosque is not yet beautiful enough! There is something it
lacks and your prayers will be unavailing!"
The words of the holy man grieved the Sultan and he had the mosque torn
down and another built in its place even more beautiful.
"This is certainly the most beautiful mosque in the world!" the people
said, and the Sultan's heart was very happy on the first day as he went
in to pray.
But again the Dervish, seated at the entrance, said to him in his
droning, sing-song voice:
"Nay, but your mosque is not yet beautiful enough! There is something it
lacks and your prayers will be unavailing!"
At the holy man's words the Sultan had the second mosque torn down and a
third one built, the most beautiful of them all. But when it was
finished for a third time the Dervish droned out:
"Nay, but your mosque is not yet beautiful enough! There is something it
lacks and your prayers will be unavailing!"
"What can I do?" the Sultan cried. "I have spent all my riches and now I
have no means wherewith to build another mosque!"
He fell to grieving and nothing any one could say would comfort him.
His three sons came to him and said:
"Father, is there not something we can do for you?"
The Sultan sighed and shook his head.
"Nothing, my sons, unless indeed you were to find out for me why my
third mosque is not the most beautiful in the world."
"Brothers," the youngest suggested, "let us go to the Dervish and ask
him why it is that the third mosque is not yet beautiful enough. Perhaps
he will tell us what is lacking."
So they went to the Dervish and asked him what he meant by saying to the
Sultan that the third mosque was not yet beautiful enough and they
begged him to tell them what it was that was lacking.
The Dervish fixed his eyes in the distance and slightly swaying his body
back and forth answered them in his sing-song tone.
"The mosque is beautiful," he said, "and the fountain in its midst is
beautiful, but where is the glorious Nightingale Gisar? With the
Nightingale Gisar singing beside the fountain, then indeed would the
Sultan's third mosque be the most beautiful mosque in the world!"
"Only tell us where this glorious Nightingale is," the brothers begged,
"and we will get him if it costs us our lives!"
"I cannot tell you that," the Dervish droned. "You will have to go out
into the world and find him for yourselves."
So the three brothers returned to the Sultan and told him what the
Dervish had said.
"All your third mosque lacks to be the most beautiful mosque in the
world," they told him, "is the Nightingale Gisar singing beside the
fountain. So grieve no more, father. We, your three sons, will go out
into the world in quest of this glorious bird and within a year's time
we will return with the bird in our hands if so be that it is anywhere
to be found in all the wide world."
The Sultan blessed them and they set forth the three of them, side by
side. They traveled together until they reached a place where three
roads branched. Upon the stone of the left-hand road nothing was
written. Upon the stone of the middle road was the inscription: _Who
goes this way returns_. The inscription on the third stone read: _Who
goes this way shall meet many dangers and may never return_.
"Let us part here," the oldest brother said, "and each take a separate
road. Then if all goes well, let us meet here again on this same spot
one year hence. As our father's oldest son it would be wrong for me to
run unnecessary risks, so I will take the left-hand road."
"And I will take the middle road," the second brother cried.
The Youngest Brother laughed and said:
"That leaves the dangerous road for me! Very well, brothers, that's the
very road I wish to take for why should I leave home if it were not to
have adventures! Farewell then until we meet again in one year's time."
The oldest traveled his safe road until he reached a city where he
became a barber. He asked every man whose head he shaved:
"Do you know anything of the Nightingale Gisar?"
He never found any one who had even heard of the bird, so after a time
he stopped asking.
The second brother followed the middle road to a city where he settled
down and opened a coffee-house.
"Have you ever heard of a glorious Nightingale known as Gisar?" he asked
at first of every traveler who came in and sipped his coffee. Not one of
them ever had and as time went by the second brother gradually stopped
even making inquiries.
The Youngest Brother who took the dangerous road came to no city at all
but to a far-off desolate place without houses or highways or farms.
Wild creatures hid in the brush and snakes glided in and out among the
rocks. One day he came upon a wild woman who was combing her hair with a
branch of juniper.
"That isn't the way to comb your hair," the Youngest Brother said.
"Here, let me show you."
He took his own comb and smoothed out all the tangles in the wild
woman's hair until she was comfortable and happy.
"You have been very kind to me," she said. "Now isn't there something I
can do for you in return?"
"I am looking for the Nightingale Gisar. If you know where that glorious
bird is, tell me and that will more than repay me."
But the wild woman had never heard of the Nightingale Gisar.
"Only wild animals inhabit this desolate place," she said, "and a few
wild people like me. The Nightingale Gisar is not here."
"Then I must go farther," the Youngest Brother said.
This the wild woman begged him not to do.
"Beyond these mountains," she said, "is a wilder desert with fiercer
animals. Turn back while you can."
"No," the Youngest Brother insisted, "I'm going as God leads me."
So he left the wild woman and crossed the mountains. He went on and on
until he was footsore and weary. Then at last he came to the Tiger's
house.
The Tiger's wife met him.
"Be off, young man!" she warned him, "or the Tiger when he comes home
will eat you!"
"No!" said the Youngest Brother, "now I'm here I'm going to stay for I
have a question to ask the Tiger."
The Tiger's wife was making bread. When the dough was ready to go into
the oven, she leaned over the glowing embers of the fire and began to
brush them aside with her body.
"Stop!" the Youngest Brother cried. "You will burn yourself!"
"But how else can I brush aside the glowing embers?" the Tiger's wife
asked.
"I'll show you."
The Youngest Brother cut a branch from a tree outside and fashioned it
into a rough broom. Then he showed the Tiger's wife how to use it.
"Ah!" she said gratefully, "before this always when I've baked bread
I've been sick for ten days afterwards. Now I shall be sick no more for
you have taught me how to use a broom. In return let me hide you in a
dark corner and when the Tiger comes home I'll tell him how kind you
have been and perhaps he will not eat you."
So she hid the Youngest Brother in a dark corner and when the Tiger
came home she met him and said:
"See, I have baked bread to-day but I am not sick, for a youth has shown
me how I can brush aside the embers without burning myself."
The Tiger was overjoyed to hear that his wife had been able to bake
bread without being made sick and he swore to be a brother to him who
had taught her the use of a broom. So the Youngest Brother came out from
the dark corner where he was hiding and the Tiger made him welcome.
"What are you doing wandering about in this wild country?" the Tiger
asked.
"I am searching for the Nightingale Gisar and I have come to you to ask
you if you can tell me where I can find that glorious bird."
The Tiger had never heard of the Nightingale Gisar but he thought that
his oldest brother the Lion might know.
"Go straight on from here," he said, "until you come to the Lion's
house. His old wife stands outside facing the house with her long thin
old dugs thrown over her shoulders. Go up to her from behind and take
her dugs and put them in your mouth and suck them and when she asks you
who you are, say: 'Don't you know me, old mother? I'm your oldest cub.'
Then she will lead you in to the Lion who is so old that his eyelids
droop. Prop them open and when he sees you he will tell you what he
knows."
So the Youngest Brother went on to the Lion's house and he found the
Lion's old wife standing outside as the Tiger said he would. He did all
the Tiger had told him to do and when the Lion's wife asked him who he
was, he said: 'Don't you know me, old mother? I'm your oldest cub.' Then
the Lion's old wife led him in to the Lion and he propped open the
Lion's drooping eyelids and asked about the Nightingale Gisar.
The old Lion shook his head.
"I have never heard of the Nightingale Gisar. He has never sung in this
wild place. Turn back, young man, and seek him elsewhere. Beyond this is
a country of wilder creatures where you will only lose your life."
"That is as God wills," the Youngest Brother said.
With that he bade the old Lion and his old wife farewell and pushed on
into the farther wilds. The mountains grew more and more rugged, the
plains more parched and barren, and the Youngest Son was hard put to it
to find food from day to day.
Once when he was crossing a desert three eagles swooped down upon him
and it was all he could do to fight them off. He slashed at them with
his sword and succeeded in cutting off the beak of one, a wing of
another, and a leg of the third. He put these three things in his bag as
trophies.
He came at last to a hut where an old woman was baking cakes on the
hearth.
"God bless you, granny!" he said. "Can you give me a bite of supper and
shelter for the night?"
The old woman shook her head.
"My boy, you had better not stop here. I have three daughters and if
they were to come home and find you here, they'd kill you."