_Wherein a brave young prince rescues his mother from a dangerous
place._
Once upon a time a king and queen were giving a grand festival.
The queen disappeared and no one could find her. The king told his
three sons to go out and not to return until they had found their
mother. Each one had a large trumpet; the one that found the queen
was to blow a loud blast and the other two brothers would come to
him. The oldest brother went into the cities; the second brother
went into towns and villages, but the youngest brother went into
the woods.
One day as the youngest brother was climbing a mountain he put his
hand on a stone to climb over, and it moved aside. There was a
deep hole, and he believed his mother was down there, because he
could hear voices. So he blew a loud blast and his brothers came
to him. They made a basket and a long rope. The youngest brother
climbed into the basket and they let him down.
When he reached the bottom he found three houses. In the first
house he found a terrible dragon asleep before a big fire and
snoring so loudly that he shook the earth. In the second house was
an enormous dog, with eyes as big as saucers, but he was chained to
the wall. In the third house he found a beautiful young princess,
and his mother.
His mother told him the dragon had seized her in the king’s garden
and had run away with her to this place. She was glad to see her
son at first but when she thought of the terrible dragon that had
brought her there, she begged him to go away.
The prince said that he was not afraid of the dragon, and would
take them both home while the dragon was asleep. He put his mother
in the basket, jerked the rope and his brothers pulled her up. They
let the basket down again and he put the princess in, but before
they could pull her up, the dragon awoke and rushed out of the
house.
He was so angry that his scales rattled like rain on a tin roof,
and he blew fire from his nostrils. The princess cried out with
fear, and called for the prince to jump in the basket. He leaped in
just as his brothers pulled them out of reach of the dragon’s tail.
Up they went, the dragon right after them. The brothers pulled fast
and hard but the dragon gained on them. The prince, seeing that
something had to be done, seized a handful of sand in the bottom of
the basket and threw it right into the dragon’s eyes. The dragon
roared with pain, but he stopped long enough to let the basket go
out of his reach.
As soon as the prince and the princess were out of the hole the
three brothers stopped it up with a big rock; but every now and
then the dragon roars, and people say: “Another earthquake is
coming,” but really it is only the dragon trying to get out.