Part 22 (1/2)

”Go straight on from here,” he said, ”until you come to the Lion's house. His old wife stands outside facing the house with her long thin old dugs thrown over her shoulders. Go up to her from behind and take her dugs and put them in your mouth and suck them and when she asks you who you are, say: 'Don't you know me, old mother? I'm your oldest cub.'

Then she will lead you in to the Lion who is so old that his eyelids droop. Prop them open and when he sees you he will tell you what he knows.”

So the Youngest Brother went on to the Lion's house and he found the Lion's old wife standing outside as the Tiger said he would. He did all the Tiger had told him to do and when the Lion's wife asked him who he was, he said: 'Don't you know me, old mother? I'm your oldest cub.' Then the Lion's old wife led him in to the Lion and he propped open the Lion's drooping eyelids and asked about the Nightingale Gisar.

The old Lion shook his head.

”I have never heard of the Nightingale Gisar. He has never sung in this wild place. Turn back, young man, and seek him elsewhere. Beyond this is a country of wilder creatures where you will only lose your life.”

”That is as G.o.d wills,” the Youngest Brother said.

With that he bade the old Lion and his old wife farewell and pushed on into the farther wilds. The mountains grew more and more rugged, the plains more parched and barren, and the Youngest Son was hard put to it to find food from day to day.

Once when he was crossing a desert three eagles swooped down upon him and it was all he could do to fight them off. He slashed at them with his sword and succeeded in cutting off the beak of one, a wing of another, and a leg of the third. He put these three things in his bag as trophies.

He came at last to a hut where an old woman was baking cakes on the hearth.

”G.o.d bless you, granny!” he said. ”Can you give me a bite of supper and shelter for the night?”

The old woman shook her head.

”My boy, you had better not stop here. I have three daughters and if they were to come home and find you here, they'd kill you.”

But the Youngest Brother insisted that he was not afraid and at last the old woman let him stay. She hid him in the corner behind the firewood and warned him to keep still.

Presently the three eagles whom he had maimed came flying into the hut.

The old woman put a bowl of milk on the table, the birds dipped in the milk, and lo! their feather s.h.i.+rts opened and they stepped out three maidens. One of them had lost her lips, one an arm, and the third a leg.

”Ah!” they cried to their mother, ”see what has befallen us! If only the youth who maimed us would return the beak and the wing and the leg that he hacked off, we would tell him anything he wants to know.”

At that the Youngest Brother stepped out from behind the firewood and said:

”Tell me then where I can find the Nightingale Gisar and you shall have back your beak and your wing and your leg.”

He opened his bag and the maidens were overjoyed to see their beak and their wing and their leg. Then they told the Youngest Brother all they knew about the Nightingale Gisar.

”Far from here,” they said, ”there is a Warrior Princess, so beautiful that men call her Flower o' the World. She has the Nightingale Gisar in a golden cage hanging in her own chamber. The chamber door is guarded by a lion and a wolf and a tiger for the Flower o' the World knows that she will have to marry the man who steals from her the Nightingale Gisar.”

”How can a man enter the chamber of the Flower o' the World?” the Youngest Brother asked.

”For a few moments at midnight,” the sisters told him, ”the three animals sleep. During those few moments a man could enter the chamber, get the Nightingale Gisar, and escape. But even then he might not be safe for the Flower o' the World might gather her army together and pursue him.”

”Now tell me how to reach the palace of that Warrior Princess, Flower o'

the World.”

”You could never get there alone,” they told him, ”the way is too long and the dangers are too many. Stay here with us for three months and at the end of three months we will carry you thither on our wings.”

So for three months the Youngest Brother stayed on in the hut with the old woman and her three daughters. The three daughters flew in their eagle s.h.i.+rts to the spring of the Water of Life and bathing in that magic pool they made grow on again the beak and the wing and the leg which the Youngest Brother had hacked off.