Page:Turkish fairy tales and folk tales (1901).djvu/306

 lived in peace and tranquillity with his bride and her sisters. Oftentimes too he went a-hunting.

One day he was pursuing a hare, and shot an arrow after it and then another, but neither of them hit the hare. Never before had Boy Beautiful missed his prey, and his heart was vexed within him. He pursued the hare still more hotly, and sent another arrow after her. This time he did bring her down, but in his haste the unhappy man had not perceived that in following the hare he had passed through the Vale of Complaint!

He took up the hare and returned homewards, but while he was still on the way a strange yearning after his father and his mother came over him. He durst not tell his bride of it, but she and her sisters immediately guessed the cause of his heaviness.

"Wretched man!" they cried, "thou hast passed through the Vale of Complaint!"

"I have done so, darling, without meaning it," he replied; "but now I am perishing with longing for my father and mother. Yet need I desert thee for that? I have now been many days with thee, and am as hale and well as ever. Suffer me then to go and see my parents but once, and then will I return to thee to part no more."

"Forsake us not, oh beloved!" cried his bride and her sisters. "Hundreds of years have passed away