Page:The folk-tales of the Magyars.djvu/192

116 could not imagine how one man could so resemble another; therefore she chatted with him the whole day, as if with her husband, and, night having set in, he had to get into the same bed with her. The prince, however, placed his unsheathed sword between himself and his-sister-in-law, saying: "If you touch me, this sword will at once cut off your hand." The princess was very sorry on hearing this, but, in order to try, she threw her handkerchief over the prince, and the sword cut it in two at once. Whereupon the princess burst out crying, and cried the whole night. Next morning the prince went out in search of his brother, and went out hunting in the same wood where he had heard his brother was lost. But, unfortunately, he met the witch, and was treated in the same way as his brother. She killed and salted him also.

After this the youngest prince returned to the tree in which the knives were, and, finding both his brothers' knives covered with blood, went in the direction in which his eldest brother had gone. He came to the town, which was still draped in black, and learned all from the old woman; he went to the palace, where the princess mistook him too for her husband. He had to sleep with her, but, like his brother, placed a sword between them, and, to the great sorrow of the princess, he, too, went out hunting the next morning. Having become tired, he made a fire, and began to fry some bacon, when the witch threw him the rod; but the prince luckily discovered in the thicket the six petrified dogs, and instead of touching his own dogs with the rod, he touched those which had been turned into stone, and all six came to life again. The witch was not aware of this and came down from the tree, and the brutes seized her on the spot, and compelled her to bring their masters to life again. Then the two princes came to life again. In their joy all three embraced each other, and their servants tore the witch in pieces. Whereupon they went home, and now the joy of the princess was full, because her husband and her brothers-in-law