Page:Researches respecting the Book of Sindibad and Portuguese Folk-Tales.djvu/124

 102 wanted, and he replied that he wished to see the tower. The old woman said that if he wished to inspect it he must first have a wrestling match with her, to which the young man agreed, and the woman asked him to fasten the lion with one of her hairs, as she was very much frightened of those animals. The young man said he would, and the old hag gave him one of her hairs, with which he secured the lion, after which he commenced to wrestle, until the youth finding that he was nearly overcome by the hag cried out to his lion: "Advance, my lion, to my assistance.!" And the old hag quickly said: "Be thickened, oh, my hair!" And as she repeated these words, the hair which kept the lion secure became a thick heavy chain. The old hag overcame the youth, and when she had him on the ground cut his head off and threw it into a subterranean cave and then entered the tower again.

After a year the two brothers met again at the spot agreed upon, and as the eldest brother had not arrived they waited for him some days, until finding that he did not come they went home, believing that he would meet them there; but as they did not find him with their parents, the second brother asked to be allowed to go in search of him. The father gave him the desired per mission, and he started, following the same road as his eldest brother had taken. After travelling a few days he arrived in the same country and city, and he went to live in the same house, and married his brother's widow. And after the marriage he asked her if she could tell him positively if a man like him, having the same kind of horse and lion, and carrying a lance, had passed that way. The woman replied that a man had arrived about a year ago who had married her, and that next day he had gone to the "Tower of Death," that whoever went in it never returned, and that having gone he had never come back, as had already happened to many men like him. The young man then said, as others before him, "Well, I shall go,