Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/344

320 the Koran. One day the Sultan went on a pilgrimage, and entrusted his daughter to a priest and said, "Continue to teach that girl the Koran." The priest coveted the girl, wishing to lie with her, but the girl refused. One day she said, "Come to me to-morrow." On the day arranged she removed from the house the ladder by which the priest used to ascend. He then sent a letter to her father, and he wrote, "Your daughter has become a whore." The Sultan returned from the pilgrimage, and he was angry with the girl, and he handed her over to some slaves, and he said, "Cut that girl's throat." Then the slaves took the girl, and brought her to a wooded place, and they cut off her legs while they dug her grave. While they were digging the grave she crawled away, and went into some trees and hid. When the slaves had dug the grave, they looked in the place where she had lain and could not find her. Then they slew a gazelle, and the gazelle's blood they poured into a bottle, and brought the blood to the Sultan and said, "We have slain the girl." One day later a caravan passed by the place and camped where the girl lay. In the afternoon as the party were loading up the camels, they saw the girl sitting under a tree. A man took the girl, and put her on a camel, and brought her to the town they came to. The man who took the girl put her to live in a house. Later on the son of the Sultan saw the girl's face, and the young man saw that her face was beautiful, and he said to the man whose house she dwelt in, "Let me marry that girl from you." And the man said, "The girl has no legs." Then the Sultan's son said, "I will marry her, give her to me." And so the man said, "Well and good." And the Sultan's son married her. She bore two children, and while she was with child the young man said, "I am going on a pilgrimage." And he left her a ram, and went on the pilgrimage. While he was away on the pilgrimage his wife had a dream, and she dreamed that two birds sat upon her two legs, and her legs had grown out, and that she made the pilgrimage. In the morning at break of day she saw the two birds sitting upon her two legs, and the legs had grown out. After daylight she took her two children and the ram and the two birds and went on the pilgrimage. She came to a building at the half way, and there came to her her father and her brother and the priest and her husband, none of whom knew her. She told stories to her children, and she related all that had happened to her, and her father heard and the priest.