Page:The folk-tales of the Magyars.djvu/372

 296 But the Green Prince had been away for such a length of time on his journey to the fairies' well that not even his father could rein ember him. The king had completely forgotten that the prince was ever born. What was he to do? Nobody knew him at his father's palace, or would recognise him as his father's son; so he conceived the strange idea of accepting a situation as swineherd in his father's service. He found stables for the piebald in a cellar at the end of the town.

While he tended his father's pigs, and went through his duties as swineherd, the fairies travelled all over the world and searched every nook and corner for the father of the child of their queen. Among other places they also came to the town of the Green King, and declared that it was their intention to examine every prince, as the person for whom they searched could only be a prince. The Green King then suddenly remembered that he had once another son but did not know his whereabouts. Something or other, however, recalled to his mind the swineherd, so he at once took pen and paper and wrote a note to the swineherd. The purport of the writing was that the king was the real father of the swineherd, and that the prince should come home with the least possible delay. The Green King sealed the letter and handed it to a gipsy with strict instructions to at once deliver it to the swineherd. The gipsy went, and the swineherd read the note and handed it back to the messenger, saying:

"My good man, take the note back. They have sent you on a fool's errand. I am not the son of the Green King."

The gipsy took the letter back in great anger. The swineherd, again, ran as fast as his legs would carry him to the stables in the cellar at the outskirts of the town, saddled his piebald, and rode ventre à terre to the centre of the town, and pulled up in front of the king's palace. There was such a sight to be seen. A great number of wonderfully pretty fairies had congregated, and were fanning the fire under a huge cauldron of boiling lead,