Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/127

 Miscellanea. 1 1 7

toumpana troumana and the khartoproumvana, and made sure that her sister would eat her. The princess went on her errand be- moaning her fate. " So my Hfe is lost, and lost in vain. Far better had I got rest from trouble sooner." But as she wept, there was the eagle, and he spoke to her and said : " Know that I am the son of the ogress, and that it was I who first kissed you. You have been constant throughout, and I will tell you how to get those things my mother sent you to fetch. Under the staircase in her sister's house is a box. Pick it up and run away with it, but mind you don't open it." When she came to the house the princess saw it was unswept and went to work and swept it, and then taking up the box she ran back. But on the way curiosity overcame her, and she opened it, and all the little devils in it escaped. Then she began to cry, again and again saying : " How can I take the box empty to the ogress? " But the eagle appeared and whistled and brought the devils back, and shut them up safely in the box. " Now," he said, " go back to my mother, she is tired of tormenting you. She will say, ' Come, my child, to your mother, what do you want me to give you ? ' and she will force you to accept something from her house. I will be turned into a jackdaw, and I will be sitting on a stool making a mess. Don't ask for anything else, but say, 'Give me that dirty jackdaw,' and she will say, ' The nasty bird, take it,' and when you have me, take leave of her." So the princess did ; and when she took the jackdaw away with her, it turned into a beautiful young prince, and they went home to her father's city and were married, and I wish I had been there.

VII. The Spanbs and the Ogres.

There was a beardless man (a-Kavos) who had two tame hares. One day he went out for a walk and took one of the hares with him, and all of a sudden he met forty ogres. " Here's a nice morsel," ^ said the ogres. But he said : " You had better take care ; I will send my hare for my servants." " What," said the ogres, " can your hare go and bring your servants ? " "Of course he can," said the beardless man ; " he is a most intelligent animal,

' Meri, which more or less precisely corresponds to the hors d'aitvre of menus.