Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/126

 ii6 Miscellanea.

servant and feel hungry. I will first set you three tasks, and if you can't perform them, then I will eat you. To-morrow I am going out hunting, and when I come back I want to find the house swept and unswept." Next day when the princess was left alone she sat down and began to cry, and, as she cried, the eagle stood before her and asked her : "What are you crying for, my child? " She told him, and he said : " Give me a kiss and I will tell you what to do." " He who kissed me first is far away," said the prin- cess, and refused ; but the eagle had compassion on her, she was crying so bitterly, and told her : " Sweep all the rooms and make little heaps of the sweepings, and if she say to you, ' Your mother is a witch and your sire a wizard, or my son Kakothanatos told you,' then you must reply, ' My mother is no witch and my father no wizard, nor did your son Kalothanatos tell me,' but mind not to say Kakothanatos, for then she will eat you." The princess did as the eagle told her. Next day the ogress said : "I am going out hunting, and when I come back I must find the meat cooked and uncooked." Again the girl sat down and cried, and the eagle stood before her and asked for a kiss if she would have him tell her what to do. But she was constant in her refusal, and the eagle, taking pity on her, told her : " Put on half the meat to boil at once, and when you see her coming throw the other half in. She will say the same thing to you again, and you must reply in the same way." So all went well, and on the third day the ogress gave the girl a mattress and bade her fill it with feathers from the sea. When the eagle appeared and again asked for a kiss, she still replied : " No, no, he who kissed me is far away." Then the eagle told her : " Take the mattress down to the sea and call to the birds, ' Our fiapyipovTciicis is dead,' and in their mourning they will shed their feathers. Then quick, quick, fill the mattress, and when the ogress comes home she will say the same thing to you again, and you must answer as I told you."

[Here on telling the story a second time the narratrix inserted a fourth task, to separate all the ears of wheat and barley, &c., which were lying mixed in the ogress's house. The eagle told the princess to go and call the birds and tell them that napyipovraKis had come to life, and out of joy and gratitude they would perform the task.]

So it befell, and the ogress could not eat the princess. But she sent her on a message to another ogress, her sister, to ask for