Page:Turkish fairy tales and folk tales (1901).djvu/135

 the middling son also went out to the tomb, and he also sat there for half the night, but no sooner did he hear the great din than he too caught up his slippers and hurried off homewards. So it now came to the turn of the third and youngest son.

The third son took his sword, stuck it in his girdle, and went off to the tomb. Sure enough, when he had sat there till midnight, he heard the horrible din, and so horrible was it that the very earth trembled. The youth pulled himself together, went straight towards the spot from whence the noise came loudest, and behold! right in front of him stood a huge dragon. Drawing his sword, the youth fell upon the dragon so furiously that at last the monster had scarcely strength enough left to say: "If thou art a man, put thy heel upon me and strike me with thy sword but once more!"

"Not I," cried the King's son, "my mother only bore me into the world once," whereupon the dragon yielded up its filthy soul. The King's son would have cut off the beast's ears and nose, but he could not see very well in the dark, and began groping about for them, when all at once he saw afar off a little shining light. He went straight towards it, and there in the midst of the brightness he saw an old man. Two globes were in his hand, one black and the other white; the black globe he was turning