Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/347

 Collectanea. 323

he was some distance off, the six camels that were left behind were not to be seen. So he ran back, and came up to find six lions eating the six camels. Then he left them, and returned to the other six camels, and found six other lions eating these. Then he took a waterskin from the camels, and came to his home, to find his family looted by an enemy.

VII.

Ho2v to choose a zvife. (Ismail.)

A man had a son, and the son said to his father, " Father, I want to marry a wife." Then his father said, " Do you take a widow." So he took a widow, and his father said, " Marry her." So he married her. Then his father said, " Tie her with a rope, and when she speaks to you, untie the rope." So he tied her with a rope, and the woman said, " This is not what I have been accustomed to see. What are you doing with me ? " Thereupon he untied the rope. In the morning his father came and said, "What did she say?" And he answered, "She said to me, ' This is not what I have been accustomed to see. Why are you doing that to me ? ' " Then his father said, " Send her away." That was one.

The father said to his son, " Take another wife, take a grown girl." Then he said, " To-night tie her with a rope, and when she speaks to you, untie it." So he tied her, and she said, "This is not what I have been accustomed to hear. Why are you tying me with that?" So he untied her. In the morning he came to his father and he said, " She said, ' This is not what I have been accustomed to hear. What are you doing to me with the rope ? ' " Then his father said, " Send her away too." And that was another.

Then his father said, " Do you go and take a nice young girl." So he took one, and he said, " To-night tie her with a rope, and when she speaks to you, untie it." So the young man did so and went to sleep, and was asleep all night. In the early morning the girl woke him up, and said, "The rope with which you tied me has fallen off and is not tied to me, tie it upon me." And in the morning he told his father. " Father, she said, ' The rope

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