Page:Turkish fairy tales and folk tales (1901).djvu/265

 steel, made provision for her journey, and set off to seek her husband.

She went on and on, past nine kingdoms and nine seas, she passed through vast forests where the tree-*stumps were like barrels, she got black and blue from stumbling over the trunks of fallen trees, yet often as she fell, she always got up again and resumed her way; the branches of the trees struck her in the face, the briars tore her hands, yet on and on she went without so much as looking back once. At last, weary with her journey and her burden, bowed down with grief and yet with hope in her heart, she came to a little house. And who should be living there but the Holy Moon.

The damsel knocked at the door and begged them to let her come in and rest a little, especially as she was about to become a mother.

The mother of the Holy Moon had compassion on her and her afflictions, so she let her come inside and took good care of her. Then she asked her: "How is it that thou, a creature of another race, hast managed to come so far as this?"

Then the poor daughter of the Emperor told her everything that had happened to her, and wound up by saying: "I praise and thank God first of all for directing my footsteps even to this place, and I thank Him in the second place because He allows not my