Page:Turkish fairy tales and folk tales (1901).djvu/245

 Aleodor would never depart from his plighted word, so he said to him: "Go now, in God's name, and may good luck attend thee!"

So Aleodor departed. He went on and on, thinking over and over again how he was to accomplish his task, and so keep his word, when he came to the margin of a pond, and there he saw a pike dashing its life out on the shore. He immediately went up to it to satisfy his hunger with it, when the pike said to him: "Slay me not, Boy-Beautiful! but cast me rather back into the water again, and then I will do thee good whenever thou dost think of me."

Aleodor listened to the pike, and threw it back into the water again. Then the pike said to him again: "Take this scale, and whenever thou dost look at it and think of me I will be with thee."

Then the youth went on further and marvelled greatly at such a strange encounter.

Presently he fell in with a crow that had one wing broken. He would have killed the crow and eaten it, but the crow said to him: "Boy-Beautiful, Boy-Beautiful! why wilt thou burden thy soul on my account? Far better were it if thou didst bind up my wing, and much good will I requite thee with for thy kindness."'', the favourite name for all young heroes in Roumanian fairy-tales.]