The Magic Bed Part 4

"We are four brothers; will you be the fifth?" they asked n.a.z.im. "Will you be one of us?"

"I will be your brother," replied n.a.z.im, "for that is why I came. All the creatures in the jungle had brothers and sisters, and I had none. I wanted to find some brethren."

Then Chimo, the youngest brother, said there were two things they wanted. One of these was fire to cook their meat, for they were obliged to eat the flesh of the deer raw; and the other was a wife for each of them.

Then one of the other brothers said that the giant Rikal Gouree had a fire burning on his hearth and four daughters who were anxious to get married. They knew that he lived not very far away, but they had never been able to find his house, so they were still without wives and firebrands to light the wood with which to cook the deer they killed.

"If you will give me a bulrush," said n.a.z.im, "I will show you the way to his house." So Chimo brought him a bulrush and n.a.z.im fitted it to his bowstring; then he bent the bow, letting the bulrush fly straight to Rikal Gouree's palace. "Follow my arrow," cried n.a.z.im. "It has cleared a path for you, and you shall find what you want."

Then the Four Brothers followed the path n.a.z.im's arrow had made, but Chimo, who was the swiftest runner, came to the giant's palace first.

Rikal Gouree was sleeping by the fire in an immense room where the couches were twenty feet long and eight feet high. The fireplace was like a huge, red, glowing cavern in which whole tree-trunks lay burning instead of logs, and the ceiling was so high that Chimo could hardly see it.

Chimo stole a look at the sleeping giant and then s.n.a.t.c.hed up a firebrand and ran for the door. But as he pa.s.sed the sleeping giant a spark from the brand lighted on Rikal Gouree's hand.

The giant sprang up with a cry of pain and rushed out of the house after Chimo, but could not catch him. In his flight Chimo dropped the fire-brand and got back to his brothers with nothing to show for his trouble but a bad fright.

"We want to leave Rikal Gouree alone," he told them. "I would rather eat raw flesh all my life than go near that monster again."

Finding he could not catch Chimo, the giant went back to his house and into the room where his wife and four daughters were. He was very cross, for he had lost his nap and the burn on his hand pained him.

As soon as he had thrown himself into his great chair his oldest daughter asked him, "Have you got husbands for us yet?" Every day one of his daughters asked him this question and the sulky old giant would reply, "No! who can get husbands for four daughters all at once?"

Then the youngest daughter asked her father who the young man was that she had seen running away from the house. He told her that while he was asleep a young man had come in and stolen a firebrand.

"I think you did very wrong to send him away," said the giant's wife.

"He would have been one husband at any rate, and giants' daughters do not get husbands easily. Here is the arrow which came into the room this morning, which was a sign that men would soon follow it. You have done a very foolish thing and we shall probably suffer for it."

Some giants' wives are afraid of their husbands, but this one was not, and she went on to give her husband such a scolding that Rikal Gouree was glad to get away and go to sleep by the fire again.

After a while the giant was awakened by beautiful music which came from a tree which grew close to his palace wall. He lay still enjoying the sweet sounds, but presently they seemed to call him outside, and looking up he saw n.a.z.im sitting on one of the branches of the tree playing on a lute.

Underneath the tree the dogs and cats and all the other animals belonging to him were listening to the music, and the boughs were covered with birds who were listening too. Presently the music grew so merry that Rikal Gouree held up his skirts and began to dance.

"What a silly old man you are!" cried his wife as she came out of the house and saw what he was doing. "You silly old man!" But in a few minutes she was dancing too, holding up her saree with one hand like a young girl, while her bangles and anklets tinkled merrily.

Then the giant called to n.a.z.im, "Here, young man, come down from the tree and I will give you anything you want."

"Then you must give me your four daughters," said n.a.z.im. "Each of my four brothers wants a wife, and you must give us, besides, a firebrand from your hearth."

"I knew the arrow was a true omen," cried the giant's wife, and then his daughters came forward and gave n.a.z.im his arrow, which they had kept very carefully. They were so pleased that they said good-bye to their father and mother, and taking as many clothes and jewels as they could carry on their heads, they set out with n.a.z.im.

On they went until they came to the needle-shaped hill where the pink-flowering tree Kidsadita was, and there they married the Four Brothers and lived very happily together.

n.a.z.im did not want to marry, and because he was better and wiser than they, the Four Brothers made him their king. The giant's daughters made their jewels into a crown for him, but no jewel was as bright as the star in his forehead, which outshone them all.

THE FISH PRINCE

EAST INDIAN FAIRY TALES

The Fish Prince

_A Prince is changed into a fish by his cruel mother. The enchantment is broken by the aid of a seven-headed cobra, and all ends well._

ONCE there were a king and queen who had two sons. The older of the two was a very short and ugly man with only one eye, and that was in the middle of his forehead. His brother was tall and handsome and carried himself like a prince.

Naturally the king preferred his handsome son and wished to make him his heir. "My people will never obey a dwarf with only one eye," he said.

This made Deesa, the older son, very angry. "The kingdom ought to be mine," he said, "or if I cannot have it all it should be divided."

He said this to his wife, whose name was Matni, and as she was an enchantress she determined to get the whole of the kingdom for her husband if possible. She thought it all over and then invited the younger brother to a banquet in that part of the palace where she lived.

Then she said to her husband, "After supper you must sit with your brother on the balcony overlooking the river. I will change him into a fish and then you can throw him into the water. In this way we shall hear no more of him."

Deesa agreed to this, and after supper invited his brother to sit with him on the balcony. Then Matni went up on the roof of the palace and threw down some powder on the younger Prince's head. Just as soon as she did this, the Prince was changed into a little fish, and his brother picked him up and threw him into the river.

All this was done so suddenly that the Prince hardly knew what had happened to him. Over and over he turned before he struck the water, but when it had closed over him he found that he had been changed into a fish and could swim very nicely underneath the water.

He seemed to know, too, that Matni had enchanted him, and he wanted to get out of her way; so he swam on and on until at the end of two days he was outside of his father's kingdom.

Then one day he was caught in a net by some fishermen and taken to the palace of the king of that country to be served up for dinner. He was not very big, and one of the servants thought it would be much nicer to have him in a bowl than to cook him.

So the servant begged for the little fish. "I will take it to the Queen's room," she said. "She has no children and is sometimes very dull. This little fish may amuse her."

The Queen was very much pleased with the pretty little fish and became very fond of him. When he grew to be too large for the bowl, she had another one prepared for him, and fed him boiled rice twice every day.

"He is such a dear," she said, "that he shall be called Athon-Rajah, the Fish Prince."

After awhile the Fish Prince grew so big that the Queen had a tank made for him through which the clear water of the river flowed in and out.

Then one day the Queen feared that the Fish Prince was not comfortable in his tank and would prefer to be in the beautiful s.h.i.+ning river which flowed past her windows. So she said to him one day, "Are you quite happy here, Athon-Rajah?"

After a moment's thought the Fish Prince replied, "I am quite happy here, dear Queen-mother, but if you could get me a nice little wife I should be happier. It is really quite lonely here all by myself."

Now the Queen looked upon the Fish Prince as her own son, and never imagined that any girl would have the least objection to marrying him.

So she said, "If you want a wife I can easily find one for you."

"But would you not like to go and swim in the river?" she went on.

"Certainly not," replied the Fish Prince. "All I want is to have a nice little wife and live right here." The answer astonished the Queen, but then she did not know that he was a fish only in appearance.

"All right," she said. "I will find you a wife at once, and have a room built in the tank for her." She had the room built at once, but it was not an easy matter to find a wife for the Fish Prince!