Page:Turkish fairy tales and folk tales (1901).djvu/260

 splendid wedding, and after three days he conducted them with great pomp to the frontier. A little while afterwards the same thing happened to the second daughter, for the son of the Emperor of the West came and sought her in marriage likewise.

Accordingly as she saw what had been written in the book gradually fulfilled, the youngest daughter of the Emperor grew sadder and sadder. She no longer enjoyed her food; she would not go out walking; she even lost all pleasure in raiment; she preferred to die rather than become the laughing-stock of the whole world. But the Emperor did not give her the opportunity of doing anything foolish, but took care to divert her with all manner of pleasant stories.

Time went on, and lo!—oh, wonderful!—one day a large hog entered the royal palace and said: "Hail, O Emperor! May thy days be as rosy and as joyous as sunrise on a cloudless day!"

"Good and fair is thy greeting, my son!" replied the Emperor; "but what ill wind hath blown thee hither, I should like to know?"

"I have come as a wooer," replied the hog.

The Emperor marvelled greatly at hearing such a pretty speech in the mouth of a hog, and immediately felt within himself that all was not right here. He would have put the hog off with some excuse if he could, to save his daughter, but when he heard