Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/131

 Rh of white bread at a girl's stall. He was highly delighted with them, purchased them, and brought the bread to his master; he ate of it, and the taste of it pleased the merchant, and he said to the lad: 'Fetch us every day of that same bread.' And daily the lad used to buy of the same girl and bring it to his master. Now once it happened, as he went, that he found nothing at the girl's, and he returned to his master and told him: 'The girl has nothing that we can buy of her.' And his master said: 'Call the girl, that we may learn from her how she used to make the bread, so that we may make some as she was wont, and not buy of the market.' The lad went and called the girl, and brought her to his master, who enquired of her thus: 'Tell me how you used to make the bread which the lad bought of you; we would make it in like manner, for I enjoyed the taste of it immensely.' The girl answered the merchant: 'My master had a bad abscess come out on his back, and the doctor prescribed for him thus: *' Take a paste of fine meal, and knead it with honey and fat, place it on the boil, and you will be cured." We did so: and as soon as the paste was heavy with the (discharge of the) boil we threw it away. This I used to pick up and bake, and as I went out to market, your boy used to come and buy it of me. But when my master had recovered from that abscess, we made no more of the like.' When the merchant heard it, he wished death to himself, and said: 'Lo, my hands and mouth I may wash, but my stomach, how can I wash!'

"Now, my sovereign master! I tremble lest it may befal thee as it befell him, lest thou seek thy son and shalt not find him. But listen further to the wiles of wicked women:—

2. V.—"There was once a woman who chose a paramour from among the king's body-guard, from those who used to bear arms before him. One day, he sent his page to that woman to see whether her husband was