Page:The folk-tales of the Magyars.djvu/159

 Rh by the young man. Death implored to be set free, but the young farmer said, "Promise me then that you will make me a rich man, and then I will let you out." Death promised him this, and they agreed that the man was to be a doctor, and whenever Death stood at the patient's feet, he or she was not to die, and could be cured by any sort of medicine whatever: but if Death stood at the patient's head he was to die: with this they parted.

Our man reached a town where the king's daughter was very ill. The doctors had tried all they could, but were not able to cure her, so he said that he was going to cure her, if she could be cured, if not, he would tell them; so thereupon he went into the patient and saw Death standing at her feet. He burnt a stack of hay, and made a bath for her of the ashes, and she recovered so soon as she had bathed in it. The king made him so many presents that he became a very rich man: he removed to the town, brought his wife there, and lived in great style as a doctor. Once however he fell sick, and his koma [his child's godfather] came and stood at his head, and the patient begged hard for him to go and stand at his feet, but his koma replied, "Not if I know it," and then the doctor also departed to the other world.

THE HUSSAR AND THE SERVANT GIRL.

HE wife of a priest in olden times, it may have been in the antediluvian world, put all the plates, dishes, and milk-jugs into a basket and sent the servant to wash them in the brook. While the girl was washing she saw a cray-fish crawl out of the water, and, as she had never seen one in her life before, she stood staring at it, and was a little