Page:Turkish fairy tales and folk tales (1901).djvu/31

 dervish approached them and addressed them with the words, "Selamun aleykyum," they took heart a bit, and replied courteously, "Ve aleykyum selam."

"What is thy errand here, my lord Padishah?" asked the dervish.

"If thou dost know that I am a Padishah, thou dost also know my errand," replied the Padishah.

Then the dervish took from his bosom an apple, gave it to the Padishah, and said these words: "Give half of this to thy Sultana, and eat the other half thyself," and with these words he disappeared.

Then the Padishah went home, gave half the apple to his consort, and ate the other half himself, and in exactly nine months and ten days there was a little prince in the harem. The Padishah was beside himself for joy. He scattered sequins among the poor, restored to freedom his slaves, and the banquet he gave to his friends had neither beginning nor end.

Swiftly flies the time in fairy tales, and the child had reached his fourteenth summer while yet they fondled him. One day he said to his father: "My lord father Padishah, make me now a little marble palace, and let there be two springs under it, and let one of them run with honey, and the other with butter!" Dearly did the Padishah love his little son, because he was his only child, so he made him the