Page:Turkish fairy tales and folk tales (1901).djvu/106

 what errand he was bent. The youth told him of his sister's case, and said he was going in search of the three-faced devil, and would not be content till he had killed him.—"Thou wilt never be able to slay the devil," said the man, "till thou hast eaten of bread that has been baked in this oven."—The youth thought this no very difficult matter, took the loaves out of the oven, but scarcely had he bitten a piece out of one of them than the oven, the man, and the loaves all disappeared before his eyes, and the bit he had taken swelled within him so that he nearly burst.

The youth hadn't gone two steps further on when he saw on the highway a large cauldron, and the cauldron was full of wine. A man was sitting in front of the cauldron, and he asked him the way, and told him the tale of the devil. "Thou wilt never be able to cope with the devil," said the man, "if thou dost not drink of this wine." The youth drank, but: "Woe betide my stomach, woe betide my bowels!" for so plagued was he that he could not have stood upright if he had not seen two bridges before him. One of these bridges was of wood and the other was of iron, and beyond the two bridges were two apple-trees, and one bore unripe bitter apples and the other sweet ripe ones.

The three-faced devil was waiting on the road to