Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 22, 1911.djvu/517

 Collectanea. 48 1

"What is it?" He replies, — "I saw a sun on one side of me, a sun on the other side, and a bright star above my heart." "Was that your dream ? " they asked. " Yes, wallah, that was my dream."

Three apples came down from God,

One to the one who told it, One to the one who asked for it, And one to the one who gave ear to it.

8. The Daughter of the Village Patriarch?

There once lived a village patriarch, M. Pazig by name, who was very rich. He wished to go to Jerusalem, and he set out with his wife and his son. He had also a grown-up daughter of matchless beauty, whom he left in the care of the chief man of the village.

Now it happened that this man fell in love with the girl ; but, try as he might, he could not win her love. At last, however, with the help of a witch, he won her consent to marry him. The girl says to the man, — " Since this thing is to be, first let me give you a good bath." She makes a fine lather of soap-suds, and covers his eyes and nose and mouth with it. Then she takes up a mallet and beats the man soundly over the head and shoulders, and runs away.

The man is unable to see because of the smarting of the soap in his eyes, and, being dizzy from loss of blood, he falls down unconscious. When he is able to rise, he goes and gets washed and wiped, and then sits down to meditate upon the trick which was played upon him. He thinks to himself, — "She not only stood out against me, but she has made me the laughing-stock of old and young. What shall I do ? " What he did was to write a letter to the girl's father, saying, — " You entrusted your daughter to me, but she has dealings with a hundred men a day."

When the father and mother received this letter, they put aside all thought of vows and pilgrimages, and started for home imme- diately. Two days before reaching the village, they send their son ahead to kill or destroy the girl. He arrives there, and says

^ This is the seventh story in Manana. It is uncertain whether M. in "M. Pazig" is an initial or is borrowed from the French.

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