Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/343

Rh effect: A youth, to whom the knowledge of the language of birds has been given by God, is one day rowing across an arm of the sea with his father to a little island. As they row three ravens alight on the boat and make a great noise. The boy laughs, and on his father's asking him why, he replies that the ravens have said that he shall thereafter be in so high a position that his father will be glad to "gyf water to my honde," and his mother to fetch a towel. His father in a rage pitches him into the sea; but he reaches a rock, whence he is rescued by a fisherman. A current, however, drives them to another land, and there the fisherman sells him to a noble. The king of that country is tormented by three ravens who constantly pursue him; and at length he summons a council to determine in what manner he is to rid himself of them, promising his daughter in marriage to any one who could effectually advise him. This somewhat disproportionate reward is won by the hero, who informs the king that the ravens are two males disputing for the third, a female claimed by both, and that they require the king's judgment on the case. When the king has given his decision the birds fly away. The hero, married to the king's daughter, bethinks himself of his parents, who meantime have fallen into great poverty. In one version he is informed of this in a vision; in that which I am citing, however, the knowledge is obtained by the much less romantic but more probable means of privy inquiries. They are found now living in his father-in-law's realm. The hero goes to the town where they dwell, puts up at an inn hard by, and sends for them. When they come he asks for water; and the prophecy of the ravens is fulfilled.

In the foregoing story the hero's loss and gain are alike made by his knowledge of the language of birds. The three ravens who require the king's judgment on their cause are found in several variants, and their number has probably duplicated itself in a way well known to folk-lore students, in the number of the birds whose conversation, as repeated by the boy, causes his father's anger. At all events this