Page:Researches respecting the Book of Sindibad and Portuguese Folk-Tales.djvu/134

 112 and left the servant with the spider. The maid remained much astonished, and wondered still more when the spider told her to open a certain door which led to the fowl-house and kill a chicken, and afterwards to open a cupboard where she would find everything necessary for cooking and for the general use of the house. When the youth returned home he found the house swept and a dinner prepared of the best and most delicious viands. Being very pleased, he turned round to the spider and said, "See what a good choice I have made in my wife!" The spider from the ceiling threw down all manner of embroidered stuffs which she had worked for beautifying her house: and after they had lived in this way a whole year, and the youth had already become very rich, and no longer required to work at his trade, for everything he required in the way of clothing and food and everything else necessary for life always made its appearance without his knowing how, he resolved to return to his mother's house as he had promised her he would do at the end of a year. He ordered two horses to be saddled and got ready, and said to his servant, "You shall now act as my wife, because I am going to tell my mother that I am married." The maid was delighted at this and mounted the horse prepared for her and went with the youth. The spider came down from the ceiling and went to the fowl-house where she only found a cock left. She got inside it, and thus went walking behind the two on horseback. On reaching the forest they entered it, and both sat on the same stone, from under which the spider had come out before. They were looking on the ground when they saw the cock and heard it crow:

At that moment the stone broke open in two parts, and became transformed into a splendid palace. The spider was turned