Page:The folk-tales of the Magyars.djvu/213

 Rh THE YOUNGEST PRINCE AND THE YOUNGEST PRINCESS.

HERE was once, I don't know where, an old petticoat a hundred years old, and in this petticoat a tuck, in which I found the following story. There was once a king who had seven sons and seven daughters: he was in great trouble where to find princesses of royal blood as wives for his sons and princes as husbands for his daughters. At last the idea struck him that the seven sons should marry the seven daughters. They all consented to their father's wish with the exception of the youngest son and daughter: "Well, if you won't," said the father, "I will give you your inheritance and you can go and try your fortune, and get married as best you can." The two children went, and came to a strange land, where they were overtaken by darkness in a wood. They chose a bushy tree for their resting place, whose leafy boughs bent down to the ground and afforded shelter. When they woke next morning, the girl told her brother that she had dreamt that there was a town not far off, where a king lived who had been ill for a long time, and thousands upon thousands of doctors had failed to cure him. He again dreamt that an old man with snow-white hair told him that the tree under which they slept gave water: in this water the king was to be bathed, and he would be cured. They at once examined the tree, and from a crack in the bark sap as clear as crystal was dripping; they filled their flasks with the fluid and continued their journey. When they reached the outskirts of the forest, they saw a town in front of them.

Having arrived there they went into an inn to find out whether their dream was true, and asked the host what the