Page:Turkish fairy tales and folk tales (1901).djvu/116

 should scorch him, and when he awoke from his sleep the wing of the bird was spread over him like a tent. And now the Anka approached him and said she would fain reward him for his good deed, and he might make a request of her. Then replied the youth: "I would fain get to the surface of the earth again."

"Be it so," said the emerald bird, "but first thou must get forty tons of ox-flesh and forty pitchers of water and sit on my back with them, so that when I say 'Gik!' thou mayest give me to eat, and when I say 'Gak!' thou mayest give me to drink."

Then the youth bethought him of his casket, took the flint-stone out of it, and struck it once, and immediately a black efrit with a mouth as big as the world stood before him and said: "What dost thou command, my Sultan?"—"Forty tons of ox-flesh, and forty pitchers of water," said the youth. In a short time the efrit brought the flesh and the water, and the youth packed it all up together and mounted on the wing of the bird. Off they went, and whenever the Anka cried "Gik!" he gave her flesh, and whenever she cried "Gak!" he gave her water. They flew from one layer of worlds to the next, till in a short time they got above the surface of the earth again, and he dismounted from the bird's back and said to her: "Wait here a while, and in a short time I shall be back."