Part 7

When the wife saw him she was greatly astonished, and cried, “In God’s name, my husband, how did you come here?” He told her how it all happened, and then added, “Now let us fly!” “How can we fly,” she asked, “when True Steel will reach us instantly? and when he does he will kill you, and carry me back.” But the prince, knowing he had three other lives to live, persuaded his wife to flee, and so they did. As soon, however, as they started, True Steel heard it, and followed immediately. When he reached them, he shouted to the king’s son, “So, prince, you have stolen your wife!” Then, after taking the wife back, he added, “Now, I forgive you this life, because I recollect that I promised to give you three lives; but go away directly, and never come here again after your wife, else you will be lost!” Thus saying, he carried the wife away, and the prince remained alone on the spot, not knowing what to do.

At length the prince resolved to go back to his wife. When he came near the cave he found an opportunity when True Steel was absent, and took his wife again and tried to escape with her.

But True Steel learned their flight directly, and ran after them. When he reached them, he fixed an arrow to his bow, and cried to the king’s son, “Do you prefer to die by the arrow or by the sword?” The king’s son asked pardon, and True Steel said, “I pardon you also the second life; but I warn you! never come here again after your wife, for I will not pardon you any more! I shall kill you on the spot!” Saying that, he carried the wife back to the cave, and the prince remained, thinking all the time how he could save her.

At last he said to himself, “Why should I fear True Steel, when I have yet two lives? One of which he has made me a present, and one which is my own?” So he decided to return again to the cave next morning, when True Steel was absent. He saw his wife, and said to her, “Let us fly!” She objected, saying, “It is of no use to fly, when True Steel would certainly overtake us.” However, her husband forced her to go with him, and they went away. True Steel, however, overtook them quickly, and shouted, “Wait a bit! This time I will not pardon you!” The prince became afraid, and begged him to pardon him also this time, and True Steel said to him, “You know I promised to give you three lives, so now I give you this one, but it is the third and last. Now you have only one life, so go home, and do not risk losing the one life God gave you!”

Then the prince, seeing he could do nothing against this great power, turned back, reflecting, however, all the time, as to the best way of getting his wife back from True Steel.

At last, he remembered what his brothers-in-law had said to him when they gave him their feathers. Then he said to himself, “I will try this fourth time to get my wife back; if I come to trouble, I will burn the feathers, and see if my brothers-in-law will come to help me.”

Hereupon he went back once more towards the cavern wherein his wife was kept, and, as he saw from a distance that True Steel was just leaving the cave, he went near and showed himself to his wife. She was surprised and terrified, and exclaimed, “Are you so tired of your life that you come back again to me?” Then he told her about his brothers-in-law, and how each of them had given him one of their feathers, and had promised to come to help him whenever he needed their assistance. “Therefore,” added he, “I am come once more to take you away; let us start at once.”

This they did. The same moment, however, True Steel heard of it, and shouted from afar, “Stop, prince! You cannot run away!” And then the king’s son, seeing True Steel so near him, quickly took out a flint and tinder-box, struck some sparks, and burned all three feathers. Whilst he was doing this, however, True Steel reached him, and, with his sword, cut the prince in two parts. That moment came the King of Dragons, rushing with his whole army of dragons, the King of Falcons, with all his falcons, and the King of Eagles, with his mighty host of eagles, and they all attacked True Steel. Torrents of blood were shed, but after all True Steel caught up the woman and fled away.

Then the three kings gave all their attention to their brother-in-law, and determined to bring him back to life. Thereupon they asked three of the most active dragons which of them could bring them, in the shortest time, some water from the river Jordan.

One said, “I could bring it in half an hour.” The second said, “I can go and return in ten minutes.” The third dragon said, “I can bring it in nine seconds.” Then the three kings said to the last one, “Go, dragon; and make haste!” Then this dragon exhibited all his fiery might, and in nine seconds, as he had promised, he came back with water from the Jordan.

The kings took the water and poured it on the places where the prince was wounded, and, as they did so, the wound closed up, the body joined together, and the king’s son sprang up alive.

Then the three kings counselled him: “Now that you are saved from death, go home!” But the prince answered, he would at all events yet once more try to get his wife back. The kings, his brothers-in-law, again spoke, “Do not try again! Indeed, you will be lost if you go, for now you have only one life which God gave you!”

The king’s son, however, would not listen to their advice. So the kings told him, “Well, then, if you are still determined to go, at least do not take your wife away immediately, but tell her to ask True Steel where his strength lies, and then come and tell us, in order that we may help you to conquer him!”

So the prince went secretly and saw his wife, and told her how she could persuade True Steel to tell her where his strength was. He then left her and went away.

When True Steel came home, the wife of the king’s son asked him, “Tell me, now, where is your great strength?” He answered, “My wife, my strength is in my sword!” Then she began to pray, and turned to his sword. When True Steel saw that, he burst out laughing, and said, “O foolish woman! my strength is not in my sword, but in my bow and arrows!” Then she turned towards the bow and arrows and prayed.

Then True Steel said, “I see, my wife, you have a clever teacher who has taught you to find out where my strength lies! I could almost say that your husband is living, and it is he who teaches you!”

But she assured him that no one taught her, for she had no longer anyone to do so.

After some days her husband came, and when she told him she could not learn anything from True Steel, he said, “Try again!” and went away.

When True Steel came home she began again to ask him the secret of his strength. Then he answered her, “Since you think so much of my strength, I will tell you truly where it is.” And he continued, “Far away from this place there is a very high mountain; in the mountain there is a fox; in the fox there is a heart; in the heart there is a bird, and in this bird is my strength. It is no easy task, however, to catch that fox, for she can transform herself into a multitude of creatures.”

Next day, as soon as True Steel left the cave, the king’s son came to his wife, and she told him all she had learned. Then the prince hurried away to his brothers-in-law, who waited, all three impatient to see him, and to hear where was the strength of True Steel. When they heard, all three went away at once with the prince to find the mountain. Having got there, they set the eagles to chase the fox, but the fox ran to a lake, which was in the midst of the mountain, and changed herself into a six-winged golden bird. Then the falcons pursued her, and drove her out of the lake, and she flew into the clouds, but there the dragons hurried after her. So she changed herself again into a fox, and began to run along the earth, but the rest of the eagles stopped her, surrounded, and caught her.

The three kings then ordered the fox to be killed, and her heart to be taken out. A great fire was made and the bird was taken out of the heart and burnt. That very moment True Steel fell down dead, and the prince took his wife and returned home with her.

THE BITER BIT

Once upon a time there was an old man who, whenever he heard anyone complain how many sons he had to care for, always laughed and said, “I wish that it would please God to give me a hundred sons!”

This he said in jest; as time, however, went on he had, in reality, neither more nor less than a hundred sons.

He had trouble enough to find different trades for his sons, but when they were once all started in life they worked diligently and gained plenty of money. Now, however, came a fresh difficulty. One day the eldest son came in to his father and said, “My dear father, I think it is quite time that I should marry.”

Hardly had he said these words before the second son came in, saying, “Dear father, I think it is already time that you were looking out for a wife for me.”

A moment later came in the third son, asking, “Dear father, don’t you think it is high time that you should find me a wife?” In like manner came the fourth and fifth, until the whole hundred had made a similar request. All of them wished to marry, and desired their father to find wives for them as soon as he could.

The old man was not a little troubled at these requests; he said, however, to his sons, “Very well, my sons, I have nothing to say against your marrying; there is, however, I foresee, one great difficulty in the way. There are one hundred of you asking for wives, and I hardly think we can find one hundred marriageable girls in all the fifteen villages which are in our neighbourhood.”

To this the sons, however, answered, “Don’t be anxious about that, but mount your horse and take in your sack sufficient engagement-cakes. You must take, also, a stick in your hand so that you can cut a notch in it for every girl you see. It does not signify whether she be handsome or ugly, or lame or blind, just cut a notch in your stick for every one you meet with.”

The old man said, “Very wisely spoken, my sons! I will do exactly as you tell me.”

Accordingly he mounted his horse, took a sack full of cakes on his shoulder and a long stick in his hand, and started off at once to beat up the neighbourhood for girls to marry his sons.

The old man had travelled from village to village during a whole month, and whenever he had seen a girl he cut a notch in his stick. But he was getting pretty well tired, and he began to count how many notches he had already made. When he had counted them carefully over and over again, to be certain that he had counted all, he could only make out seventy-four so that still twenty-six were wanting to complete the number required. He was, however, so weary with his month’s ride, that he determined to return home. As he rode along, he saw a priest driving oxen yoked to a plough, and seemingly very deep in anxious thought about something. Now the old man wondered a little to see the priest ploughing his own corn-fields without even a boy to help him, he therefore shouted to ask him why he drove his oxen himself. The priest, however, did not even turn his head to see who called to him, so intent was he in urging on his oxen and in guiding his plough.

The old man thought he had not spoken loud enough, so he shouted out again as loud as he could, “Stop your oxen a little, and tell me why you are ploughing yourself without even a lad to help you, and this, too, on a holy-day?”

Now the priest—who was in a perspiration with his hard work—answered testily, “I conjure you by your old age, leave me in peace! I cannot tell you my ill-luck.”

At this answer, however, the old man was only the more curious, and persisted all the more earnestly in asking questions to find out why the priest ploughed on a Saint’s day. At last the priest, tired with his importunity, sighed deeply and said, “Well, if you will know: I am the only man in my household, and God has blessed me with a hundred daughters!”

The old man was overjoyed at hearing this, and exclaimed cheerfully, “That’s very good! It is just what I want, for I have a hundred sons, and so, as you have a hundred daughters, we can be friends!”

The moment the priest heard this he became pleasant and talkative, and invited the old man to pass the night in his house. Then, leaving his plough in the field, he drove the oxen back to the village. Just before reaching his house, however, he said to the old man, “Go yourself into the house whilst I tie up my oxen.”

No sooner, however, had the old man entered the yard than the wife of the priest rushed at him with a big stick, crying out, “We have not bread enough for our hundred daughters, and we want neither beggars nor visitors,” and with these words she drove him away.

Shortly afterwards the priest came out of the barn, and, finding the old man sitting on the road before the gate, asked him why he had not gone into the house as he had told him to do. Whereupon the old man replied, “I went in, but your wife drove me away!”

Then the priest said, “Only wait here a moment till I come back to fetch you.” He then went quickly into his house and scolded his wife right well, saying, “What have you done? What a fine chance you have spoiled! The man who came in was going to be our friend, for he has a hundred sons who would gladly have married our hundred daughters!”

When the wife heard this she changed her dress hastily, and arranged her hair and head-dress in a different fashion. Then she smiled very sweetly, and welcomed with the greatest possible politeness the old man, when her husband led him into the house. In fact, she pretended that she knew nothing at all of anyone having been driven away from their door. And as the old man wanted much to find wives for his sons, he also pretended that he did not know that the smiling house-mistress and the woman who drove him away with a stick were one and the self-same person.

So the old man passed the night in the house, and next morning asked the priest formally to give him his hundred daughters for wives for his hundred sons. Thereupon the priest answered that he was quite willing, and had already spoken to his daughters about the matter, and that they, too, were all quite willing. Then the old man took out his “engagement-cakes,” and put them on the table beside him, and gave each of the girls a piece of money to mark them. Then each of the engaged girls sent a small present by him to that one of his sons to whom she was thus betrothed. These gifts the old man put in the bag wherein he had carried the “engagement-cakes.” He then mounted his horse, and rode off merrily homewards.

There were great rejoicings in his household when he told how successful he had been in his search, and that he really had found a hundred girls ready and willing to be married; and these hundred, too, a priest’s daughters.

The sons insisted that they should begin to make the wedding preparations without delay and commenced at once to invite the guests who were to form part of the wedding procession to go to the priest’s house and bring home the brides.

Here, however, another difficulty occurred. The old father must find two hundred brideleaders (two for each bride) one hundred kooms (first witnesses); one hundred starisvats (second witnesses); one hundred chaious (running footmen who go before the processions) and three hundred vojvodes (standard-bearers); and, besides these, a respectable number of other guests.

To find all these persons the father had to hunt throughout the neighbourhood for three years; at last, however, they were all found, and a day was appointed when they were to meet at his house and go thence in procession to the house of the priest.

On the appointed day all the invited guests gathered at the old man’s house. With great noise and confusion, after a fair amount of feasting, the wedding procession was formed properly, and set out for the house of the priest, where the hundred brides were already prepared for their departure for their new home.

So great was the confusion, indeed, that the old man quite forgot to take with him one of the hundred sons, and never missed him in the greeting and talking and drinking he was obliged, as father of the bridegrooms, to go through. Now the young man had worked so long and so hard in preparing for the wedding-day that he never woke up till long after the procession had started and everyone had had, like his father, too much to do and too many things to think of to miss him.

The wedding procession arrived in good order at the priest’s house, where a feast was already spread out for them. Having done honour to the various good things, and having gone through all the ceremonies usual on such occasions, the hundred brides were given over to their “leaders,” and the procession started on its return to the old man’s house. But, as they did not set off until pretty late in the afternoon, it was decided that the night should be spent somewhere on the road. When they came, therefore, to a certain river named “Luckless,” as it was already dark, some of the men proposed that the party should pass the night by the side of the water without crossing over. However, some others of the chief of the party so warmly advised the crossing the river and encamping on the other bank, that this course was at length, after a very lively discussion, determined on; accordingly the procession began to move over the bridge.

Just, however, as the wedding party were half-way across the bridge its two sides began to draw nearer each other, and pressed the people so close together that they had hardly room to breathe—much less could they move forwards or backwards.

They were kept for some time in this position, some shouting and scolding, others quiet because frightened, until at length a black giant appeared, and shouted to them in a terribly loud voice, “Who are you all? Where do you come from? Where are you going?”

Some of the bolder among them answered, “We are going to our old friend’s house, taking home the hundred brides for his hundred sons; but unluckily we ventured on this bridge after nightfall, and it has pressed us so tightly together that we cannot move one way or the other.”

“And where is your old friend?” inquired the black giant.

Now all the wedding guests turned their eyes towards the old man. Thereupon he turned towards the giant, who instantly said to him, “Listen, old man! Will you give me what you have forgotten at home, if I let your friends pass over the bridge?”

The old man considered some time what it might be that he had forgotten at home, but at last, not being able to recollect anything in particular that he had left, and hearing on all sides the groans and moans of his guests, he replied, “Well, I will give it you, if you will only let the procession pass over.”

Then the black giant said to the party, “You all hear what he has promised, and are all my witnesses to the bargain. In three days I shall come to fetch what I have bargained for.”

Having said this, the black giant widened the bridge and the whole procession passed on to the other bank in safety. The people, however, no longer wished to spend the night on the way, so they moved on as fast as they could, and early in the morning reached the old man’s house.

As everybody talked of the strange adventure they had met with, the eldest son, who had been left at home, soon began to understand how the matter stood, and went to his father saying, “O my father! you have sold me to the black giant!”

Then the old man was very sorry, and troubled; but his friends comforted him, saying, “Don’t be frightened! nothing will come of it.”

The marriage ceremonies were celebrated with great rejoicings. Just, however, as the festivities were at their height, on the third day, the black giant appeared at the gate and shouted, “Now, give me at once what you have promised.”

The old man, trembling all over, went forward and asked him, “What do you want?”

“Nothing but what you have promised me!” returned the black giant.

As he could not break his promise, the old man, very much distressed, was then obliged to deliver up his eldest son to the giant, who thereupon said, “Now I shall take your son with me, but after three years have passed you can come to the Luckless River and take him away.”

Having said this the black giant disappeared, taking with him the young man, whom he carried off to his workshop as an apprentice to the trade of witchcraft.

From that time the poor old man had not a single moment of happiness. He was always sad and anxious, and counted every year, and month, and week, and even every day, until the dawn of the last day of the three years. Then he took a staff in his hand and hurried off to the bank of the river Luckless. As soon as he reached the river, he was met by the black giant, who asked him, “Why are you come?” The old man answered that he had come to take home his son, according to his agreement.

Thereupon the giant brought out a tray on which stood a sparrow, a turtle-dove, and a quail, and said to the old man, “Now, if you can tell which of these is your son, you may take him away.”

The poor old father looked intently at the three birds, one after the other, and over and over again, but at last he was forced to own that he could not tell which of them was his son. So he was obliged to go away by himself, and was far more miserable than before. He had hardly, however, got half-way home when he thought he would go back to the river and take one of the birds which he remembered had looked at him intently.

When he reached the river Luckless he was again met by the black giant, who brought out the tray again, and placed on it this time a partridge, a tit-mouse, and a thrush, saying, “Now, my old man, find out which is your son!”

The anxious father again looked at one bird after the other, but he felt more uncertain than before, and so, crying bitterly, again went away.

Just as the old man was going through a forest, which was between the river Luckless and his house, an old woman met him, and said, “Stop a moment! Where are you hurrying to? And why are you in such trouble?” Now, the old man was so deeply musing over his great unhappiness that he did not at first attend to the old woman; but she followed him, calling after him, and repeating her questions with more earnestness. So he stopped at last, and told her what a terrible misfortune had fallen upon him. When the old woman had listened to the whole story, she said cheerfully, “Don’t be cast down! Don’t be afraid! Go back again to the river, and, when the giant brings out the three birds, look into their eyes sharply. When you see that one of the birds has a tear in one of its eyes, seize that bird and hold it fast, for it has a human soul.”

The old man thanked her heartily for her advice, and turned back, for the third time, towards the Luckless River. Again the black giant appeared, and looked very merry whilst he brought out his tray and put upon it a sparrow, a dove, and a woodpecker, saying, “My old man! find out which is your son!” Then the father looked sharply into the eyes of the birds, and saw that from the right eye of the dove a tear dropped slowly down. In a moment he grasped the bird tightly, saying, “This is my son!” The next moment he found himself holding fast his eldest son by the shoulder, and so, singing and shouting in his great joy, took him quickly home and gave him over to his eldest daughter-in-law, the wife of his son.

Now, for some time they all lived together very happily. One day, however, the young man said to his father, “Whilst I was apprentice in the workshop of the black giant, I learned a great many tricks of witchcraft. Now I intend to change myself into a fine horse, and you shall take me to market and sell me for a good sum of money. But be sure not to give up the halter.”