Page:Turkish fairy tales and folk tales (1901).djvu/20

 so that he absolutely could not take his eyes off her. "Art thou a spirit or a peri?" said the Padishah to the damsel.

"I am neither a spirit nor a peri, but a mortal as thou art," replied the damsel.

In vain the Padishah begged her to come down from the tree. In vain he implored her, nothing he could say would make her come down. Then the Padishah waxed wroth. He commanded them to cut down the tree. The men brought their axes and fell a-hewing at the tree. They hewed away at the vast tree, they hewed and hewed until only a little strip of solid trunk remained to be cut through; but, meanwhile, eventide had drawn nigh and it began to grow dark, so they left off their work, which they purposed to finish next day.

Scarcely had they departed when the stag came running out of the forest, looked at the tree, and asked the little sister what had happened. The girl told him that she would not descend from the tree, so they had tried to cut it down. "Thou didst well," replied the stag, "and take care thou dost not come down in future, whatever they may say." With that he went to the tree, licked it with his tongue, and immediately the tree grew bigger round the hewed trunk than before.