Page:Turkish fairy tales and folk tales (1901).djvu/32

 marble palace with the springs inside it as his son desired. There then sat the King's son in the marble palace, and while he was looking at the springs that bubbled forth both butter and honey, he saw an old woman with a pitcher in her hand, and she would fain have filled it from the spring. Then the King's son caught up a stone and flung it at the old woman's pitcher, and broke it into pieces. The old woman said not a word, but she went away.

But the next day she was there again with her pitcher, and again she made as if she would fill it, and a second time the King's son cast a stone at her and broke her pitcher. The old woman went away without speaking a word. She came on the third day also, and it fared with her pitcher then as on the first two days. Then the old woman spoke. "Oh, youth!" cried she, "'tis the will of Allah that thou shouldst fall in love with the three Orange-peris," and with that she quitted him.

From thenceforth the heart of the King's son was consumed by a hidden fire. He began to grow pale and wither away. When the Padishah saw that his son was ill, he sent for the wise men and the leeches, but they could find no remedy for the disease. One day the King's son said to his father: "Oh, my dear little daddy Shah! these wise men of thine cannot cure me of my disease, and all their labours are in