Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/18

10 quickly on one aide and floated again by itself. The king knelt down and began to try to catch it, now with his right hand, now with his left, but it moved and dodged away in such a manner that, not being able to seize it with one hand, he tried to catch it with both. But scarcely had he reached out with both hands when the cup dived like a fish, and floated again on the surface. "Dang it!" thought the king, "I can't help myself with the cup, I'll manage without it." He then bent down to the water, which was as clear as crystal and as cold as ice, and began to drink in his thirst. Meanwhile his long beard, which reached down to his girdle, dipped into the water. When he had quenched his thirst, he wanted to get up again—something was holding his beard and wouldn't let it go. He pulled once and again, but it was of no use; he cried out therefore in anger, "Who's there? let go." "It's I, the subterranean king, immortal Bony, and I shall not let go till you give me that which you left unknowingly at home, and which you do not expect to find on your return." The king looked into the depth of the well, and there was a huge head like a tub, with green eyes and a mouth from ear to ear, which was holding the king by the beard with extended claws like those of a crab, and was laughing mischievously. The king thought that a thing, of which he had not known before starting, and which he did not expect on his return, could not be of great value, so he said to the apparition, "I give it." The apparition burst with laughter and vanished with a flash of fire, and with it vanished also the well, the water, the wooden fence, and the cup; and the king was again on a hillock by a little wood kneeling on dry sand, and therewas no thing more. The king got up, crossed himself, sprang on his horse, hastened to his attendants, and rode on.

In a week or may be a fortnight the king arrived at his capital; the people came out in crowds to meet him; he went in procession to the great court of the palace and entered the corridor. In the corridor stood the queen awaiting him, and holding close to her bosom a cushion; on which lay a child, beautiful as the moon, kicking in swaddling-clothes. The king recollected himself, sighed painfully, and said within himself: "This is what I left without knowing and found without expecting!" And bitterly, bitterly did he weep. All