Page:Turkish fairy tales and folk tales (1901).djvu/74

 own daughter, so that mischief and malice were her meat and drink. She now went and picked up two pups and took them with her to the sick woman's bed.

And oh, my soul! the wife of the Padishah brought forth two little children like shining stars. One was a boy, the other a girl; on the boys forehead was a half-moon and on the girl's a star, so that darkness was turned to light when they were by. Then the wicked old woman exchanged the children for the pups, and told it in the ears of the Padishah that his wife had brought forth two pups. The Padishah was like to have had a fit in the furiousness of his rage. He took his poor wife, buried her up to the waist in the ground, and commanded throughout the city that every passer-by should strike her on the head with a stone. But no sooner had the evil witch got hold of the two children, than she took them a long way outside the town, exposed them on the bank of a flowing stream, and returned to the palace right glad that she had done her work so well.

Now close to the water where the two children lay stood a hut where lived an aged couple. The old man had a she-goat which used to go out in the morning to graze, and come back in the evening to be milked, and that was how the poor people kept body and soul together. One day, however, the old woman was