Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/124

 1 14 Miscellanea.

companion, and it is his turn to-morrow." " Let me take his place," said the young man, and they consented. Next morning he took the milk, and called to the eagle, and found himself in a moment at the palace. The princess was, you may be sure, very pleased, and gave him a handsome present. This went on for some days, and he began to grow fond of the princess, and one night he called on the eagle, and found himself in her bedchamber, where she lay asleep, with a candle at her head and a candle at her feet, and a glass of sherbet and an apple on the table at her bedside. He ate the apple and drank the sherbet, and lay down by the princess's side and kissed her. " A man ! a man ! " shouted the princess, and everybody in the palace came running to see what was the matter. But he had called on the ant, and disappeared by burrowing through the floor. So they quieted her, and per- suaded her it was fancy. Next night the same thing happened, and this time the king was very angry, and told his daughter if there was any more of this nonsense he would cut her head off. On the following night the princess put hooks in her hands, and when she felt herself kissed, instead of calling out, said : " Let me stroke your face," but instead of stroking it she scratched it all over. Calling on the ant, the young man disappeared, and next morning he told the shepherds that he could no longer take the milk. But they promised him half their flocks, and begged and entreated him so hard that he had to give in, and off he went with the milk. Of course the princess knew at once, when she saw his face, that it was he who had visited her at night : but he was a handsome fellow, and she was not so very angry.

Now it happened that the king, her father, had just of late been telling her that it was time for her to choose a husband, and the fisherman's son bade her say that she would have no one but him who could move a huge marble block which lay in the courtyard of the palace. The king sent out his heralds to cry that whoever could move this block would have his daughter to wife. Many suitors tried in vain ; then came the shepherd lad, and calling on the lion, took up the great stone, and threw it as far as from here to the Makrb Yialb. The princess threw an apple at him, and they were married.

After a while the king had to go to war. He was getting old, and one day he said to his daughter: "Ah, that I had a soldier for a son-in-law, who could lead my armies, and not this