Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/128

 ^i8 Miscellanea,

and does all my shopping and all my messages for me." " Really ! " said the ogres ; " won't you sell him to us ? " " Certainly not," said the man. But after much entreaty he consented to part with the hare for three hundred piastres.

The ogres took the hare home and left him with their cook, who was one of themselves, and when they went to work told him to send the hare to them to say when dinner was ready. Their brother, the cook, when he was nearly ready to serve, strictly charged and dismissed the hare; but the hare took to her heels, and is running still. The ogres waited and waited, but they got no news of their dinner, and came home at nightfall, and swore to be revenged on the beardless man. They went to his house next day, and told him they must eat him; but he asked: "Why? You didn't tell the hare distinctly enough where to go, and here he is ; he has come home to his master," and he introduced to them the other hare, which was just Hke its fellow, and said : " Take him back and speak to him more clearly." This time the ogres' cook spoke most distinctly to the hare, and told him on no account to forget the message and go to his old home again. But the hare ran merrily away over the hills ; and the ogres never heard that dinner was ready, and went on working till it grew dark.

Now they swore more solemnly than before to be revenged on the Spanos, and started off for his house. He had wrapped his wife up in the guts of a dead beast and made her lie on the floor ; and when the ogres came to his house he took up his flute and began to play. Up got his wife the moment she heard the flute ; and the ogres stood by in astonishment, and asked him : "What is the meaning of this ? " " Oh," he said, " I often quarrel with my wife and kill her ; but I have only to play a tune on this flute and she comes to life again." " Really ! " said the ogres; and after much haggling they got him to sell the flute for three thousand piastres ; and they all went back and killed their wives, and began playing on the flute. But never one of their wives came to hfe again.

Then they swore a still more terrible oath to be revenged, and agreed that, as one would not go far among forty, they would not eat the Span6s, but hang him. When they came to his house and told him their decision, he said : " Well, if I am to be hanged, I am to be hanged ; only let me ride on my donkey to