Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/284

276 God alone. The moral of the whole poem is "A man cannot serve two masters," &c.

In the land of the East (mulk-i-Sharq) there dwelt a mighty king, named Shamshád Lálposh, who had seven sons. One day his eldest son, hunting in the mountains, met a coal-black deer, caparisoned in brocade, with a golden chain set with gems and bells about its neck. He followed it up, and met a madman in the forest, who told him that he was King Jahángír, of Bábal, and that he had been driven mad by the death of his seven sons in attempting to answer the riddle set by Mihar Angez, the daughter of Sháh QaimÙs, of Turkestán, as a condition of obtaining her hand. This fired the prince with a desire to answer the riddle, but he succeeded only in meeting his death, and so with his five brothers. The seventh and last, Almás Rúh Bakhsh, a clever youth, went also to try his luck. In his wanderings about the city he met Dílárám, the maid of Mihar Angez, who, on condition that he raised her to the dignity of a wife, told him what she knew about the matter of the riddle. Under the princess's throne there dwelt a Zangí (Sídí of Zanzibar) who had fled from his native city of Wáqáf, and had told the princess of the riddle, whereon she had fixed it as the condition of obtaining her. The prince accordingly set out for Wáqáf to solve the riddle. On the road a magician, Princess Latifa Báno, transformed him into a deer, but he was released by her sister,