Page:The Grateful Dead.djvu/152

136 Lotharingian runs as follows: A king has three sons. He sends them successively to seek the water of life. Two of them refuse to help a shepherd on the way, and rest from their search in Pekin. The third, who is deformed, aids the shepherd, and receives from him some arrows, which will pierce well whatever they strike, and a flageolet, which will make everyone dance within hearing of it. Arrived at Pekin, the humpback pays the debts of a corpse, and has it buried. He goes on till his money is exhausted. When he is about to shoot a fox one day, he is stayed by pity, and is directed by the creature to the castle where the water of life is to be found. There he is detained by an ogre, and wins battles for him by the aid of the magical arrows. There is a princess in the castle, who refuses to marry the ogre. The hero makes her dance, and obtains from the ogre as recompense the promise of whatever he wishes. He asks for the most beautiful thing there and the right to circle the castle three times. So he takes the princess, a phial of the water of life, as well as the uglier of the two mules and of the two green birds, as the fox has told him, and flees away. He meets the fox again, and is warned not to help any one in trouble. Nevertheless, he rescues his two brothers from the scaffold in Pekin, and is cast into a well by them. They go home, but are not able to heal the king. Meanwhile, the prince is saved by the fox, and is made straight of body. He goes home, and at his coming the king becomes young again, while the brothers are burned. So the prince marries the lady.

In Tuscan we learn that the youngest of three princes, while wandering, paid the debts of a man whose corpse was being insulted. When he had buried the man, he found himself without a farthing, and so slept in the forest. In the morning he was greeted by a hare (lieprina) with a basket of food in its mouth. He took