Page:Turkish fairy tales and folk tales (1901).djvu/276

 BOY-BEAUTIFUL, THE GOLDEN APPLES, AND THE WERE-WOLF

Once upon a time, a long while ago, when the very flies wrote upon the walls more beautifully than the mind can picture, there lived an Emperor and an Empress who had three sons, and a very beautiful garden alongside their palace. At the bottom of this garden there grew an apple-tree, entirely of gold from the top to the bottom. The Emperor was wild with joy at the thought that he had in his garden an apple-tree, the like of which was not to be found in the wide world. He used to stand in front of it, and poke his nose into every part of it, and look at it again and again, till his eyes nearly started out of his head. One day he saw this tree bud, blossom, and form its fruit, which began to ripen before him. The Emperor twisted his moustache, and his mouth watered at the thought that the next day he would have a golden apple or two on his table, an unheard-of thing up to that moment since the world began.