Page:Turkish fairy tales and folk tales (1901).djvu/71



Once upon a time, in days long gone by, when my father was my father, and I was my fathers son, when my father was my son, and I was my father's mother, once upon a time, I say, at the uttermost ends of the world, hard by the realm of demons, stood a great city.

In this same city there dwelt three poor damsels, the daughters of a poor wood-cutter. From morn to eve, from evening to morning, they did nothing but sew and stitch, and when the embroideries were finished, one of them would go to the market-place and sell them, and so purchase wherewithal to live upon.

Now it fell out, one day, that the Padishah of that city was wroth with the people, and in his rage he commanded that for three days and three nights nobody should light a candle in that city. What were these three poor sisters to do? They could not