Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/341

Rh pilgrimage. Now a certain Jew was a friend of the Sultan's wife, but the Sultan's son and the Jew were enemies. The Jew said to the woman, "Let us kill the boy." So she mixed some poison in his food. But the boy had a mare, who knew everything, and the mare said to the boy, "Don't eat the food"; and when the food was put before him, the boy refused it. The next day the Jew came to the Sultan's wife and said, "When the Sultan comes back, say you are sick, and when he asks what will cure you, tell him the liver of the mare." The next day the Sultan came. Then she laid the skin on the bed and placed under it some fig-leaves, and when she lay down the leaves crackled. Then the Sultan said, "What is the matter with you?" and she said, "I have a pain in my ribs." "What will cure you?" he said; and she answered, "The liver of your son's mare." The Sultan called the boy and said, "I intend to kill your mare for your stepmother." And the boy said, "Very well, but let me take a ride on her this evening." In the evening the boy rode the mare, and said to his father, "Good-bye, Father," and departed with the mare. He went to a town, and near the town he saw six girls washing at a well. The youngest of the girls saw him, and when she saw the man, she ran away from the well, being ashamed in front of the man. Then he singed the tail of the mare, who went up into the sky. The young man then pretended to be a cripple, and went into the town, and there became a servant.

Later on the daughters of the Sultan said, "We wish to marry." The Sultan beat his drum, and announced, "My daughters wish to marry." Then the rich young men came together, and the girls were brought, and the people stood in the plain. Then the girls were asked, "Are the men you want all here?" And the young girl said, "The man I wanted is not here." The slave girls who were summoning the men were told to call all the men in the town, so they called the young cripple, Lame Habiyo. Then the Sultan asked the girls, "Are the men all here?" And they said, "Yes." The girls were given six oranges, and they were told, "Let each girl hit the man she wants." The five other girls hit five rich young men; the young girl hit Lame Habiyo. Then her father and mother were so struck with horror that they lost their sight, and the young man married the girl. On the next day they were told, "That which will cure the Sultan and his wife is rhinoceros' milk." And the young