The Prince Who Befriended the Beasts

There was a king, and he had three sons. Once he fell ill, and became

blind in both eyes. He sent his sons for a surgeon. All the surgeons

agreed that there was a fish of a rare kind by the help of which the

king might be cured. [1] They made a sketch of the fish, and left

it with the sick monarch.

The king commanded his eldest son to go and catch that fish in the

sea. A hundred men with their nets were lost in the sea, but nought

could they find like the fish they sought. The eldest son came home

to his father and said: 'I have found nothing.' This displeased the

king, but what could he do? Then the second son set out, taking with

him a hundred men also, but all his men were lost too, and he brought

back nothing.

After this, the youngest brother went. He had recourse to cunning;

he took with him a hundred kilas [2] of flour and one man. He came to

the sea, and every day he strewed flour in the water, near the shore,

until all the flour was used up; the fishes grew fat on the flour,

and said: 'Let us do a service to this youth since he has enabled

us to grow fat'; so, as soon as the youth threw a net into the sea,

he at once drew out the rare fish he sought. He wrapped it up in the

skirt of his robe, and went his way.

As he rode along, some distance from his companion, he heard a voice

that said: 'O youth, I am dying!' But on looking round he saw no man,

and continued his journey. After a short time, he again heard the same

words. He looked round more carefully, but saw nothing. Then he glanced

at the skirt of his robe, and saw that the fish had its mouth open,

and was dying. The youth said to it: 'What dost thou want?' The fish

answered: 'It will be better for thee if thou wilt let me go, some

day I shall be of use to thee.' The youth took it and threw it into

the water, saying to his comrade: 'I hope thou wilt not betray me.'

When he reached home, he told his father that he had been

unsuccessful. Some time passed. Once the prince quarrelled with his

comrade, and the latter ran off and told the king how his son had

deceived him. When the king heard this, he ordered his son to be

taken away and killed. He was taken out, but when they were about

to kill him, the youth entreated them, saying: 'What doth it profit

you if you slay me? If you let me go, 'twill be a good deed, and

I shall flee to foreign lands.' The executioners took pity on him,

and set him free; he thanked them, and departed.

He went, he went, he went, he went farther than anybody ever went--he

came to a great forest. As he went through the forest, he saw a deer

running, in a great state of alarm. The youth stopped, and fixed his

gaze on it; then the deer came up and fell on its face before him. The

youth asked: 'What ails thee?' 'The prince pursues me, and on thee

depends my safety.' The youth took the deer with him and went on. A

huntsman met him, and asked: 'Whither art thou leading the deer?' The

youth replied: 'One king has sent it as a gift to another king, and,

lo! I am taking it.' The youth thus saved the deer from death, and

the deer said: 'A time will come when I shall save thy life.'

The youth went on his way: he went, he went, he went, so far he went,

good sir, that the 'three day colt' (of fable) could not go so far. He

looked, and, lo! a frightened eagle perched on his shoulder, and said:

'Youth, on thee depends my safety!' The youth protected it also from

its pursuer. Then the eagle said to him: 'Some day I shall do thee

a service.'

The youth went on: he went through the forest, he went, he went,

he went, he went farther than he could, he went a week, two weeks,

a year and three months. Then he heard some fearful rumbling,

roaring, thunder and lightning--something was coming through the

forest, breaking down all the trees. A great jackal appeared, and

ran up to the youth, saying: 'If thou wilt thou canst protect me;

the prince is pursuing me with all his army.' The youth saved the

jackal, as he had saved the other animals. Then the jackal said:

'Some day I shall help thee.'

The youth went on his way, and, when he was out of the wood, came to

a town. In this town he found a castle of crystal, in the courtyard of

which he saw a great number of young men, some dying and some dead. He

asked the meaning of this, and was told: 'The king of this land has a

daughter, a maiden queen; she has made a proclamation that she will

wed him that can hide himself from her; but no man can hide himself

from her, and all these men has she slain, for he that cannot hide

himself from her is cast down from the top of the castle.'

When the youth heard this, he at once arose, and went to the

maiden. They bowed themselves each to the other. The maiden asked him:

'Wherefore art thou come hither?' The youth answered: 'I come for

that which others have come for.' She immediately called her viziers

together, and they wrote out the usual contract.

The youth went out from the castle, came to the seashore, sat down,

and was soon buried in thought. Just then, something made a great

splash in the sea, came and swallowed the youth, carried him into

the Red Sea, there they were hidden in the depths of the sea, near

the shore. The youth remained there all that night.

When the maiden arose next morning she brought her mirror and looked

in it, but she found nothing in the sky, she looked on the dry land,

and found nothing there, she looked at the sea--and then she saw

the youth in the belly of the fish, which was hiding in the deep

waters. After a short time, the fish threw up the youth on the place

where it had found him. He went merrily to the maiden. She asked:

'Well, then, didst thou hide thyself?' 'Yes, I hid myself.' But the

maiden told him where he had been, and how he got there, and added:

'This time I forgive thee, for the cleverness thou hast shown.'

The youth set out again, and sat down in a field. Then something fell

upon him, and took him up into the air, lifted him up into the sky,

and covered him with its wing. When the maiden arose next morning,

she looked in her mirror, she gazed at the mountain, she gazed at the

earth, but she found nothing, she looked at the sky, and there she saw

how the eagle was covering the youth. The eagle carried the youth down,

and put him on the ground. He was joyful, thinking that the maiden

could not have seen him; but when he came to her she told him all.

Then he fell into deep melancholy, but the maiden, being struck with

wonder at his cunning in hiding himself, told him that she again

forgave him. He went out again, and, as he was walking in the field,

the deer came to him and said: 'Mount on my back.' He mounted, and the

deer carried him away, away, away over all the mountains that were

there, and put him in a lair. When the maiden arose next morning,

she found him, and when he came back to her she said: 'Young man,

it seems that thou hast many friends, but thou canst not hide thyself

from me; yet this day also I forgive thee.' The youth went sadly away;

he had lost confidence.

When he sat down in the field, an earthquake began, the town shook,

lightning flashed, thunder rolled, and when a thunderbolt had fallen,

there leapt out from it his friend the gigantic jackal, and said

to him: 'Fear not, O youth!' The jackal had recourse to its wonted

cunning, it began to scrape at the earth: it dug, it dug, it dug,

and burrowed right up to the place where the maiden dwelt, and then

it said to the youth: 'Stay thou here, she will look at the sky,

the mountain, the sea, and when she cannot find thee she will break

her mirror; when thou hearest this, then strike thy head through the

ground and come out.'

This advice, of course, pleased the youth. When the maiden arose in

the morning, she looked at the sea, she found him not, she looked

at the mountain, she looked at the sky, and still she could not see

him, so she broke her mirror. Then the youth pushed his head through

the floor, bowed, and said to the maiden: 'Thou art mine and I am

thine!' They summoned the viziers, sent the news to the king, and a

great feast began.

[1] Cf. the beginning of 'Gulambara and Sulambara' on p. 42; also

the Biblical story of Tobit and the Angel.

[2] Kila, a measure of flour = about 36 to 40 pounds.