One Thousand and One Nights

by Richard Burton

  It would indeed be surprising did we not find our story popularly known

  throughout Germany in various forms. Under the title of “The Three Little

  Birds” a version is given in Grimm’s K. u. H. M. (No. 96, vol. i. of Mrs.

  Hunt’s English translation), which reproduces the chief particulars of

  Galland’s tale with at least one characteristic German addition;

  Richard Francis Burton’s translation: detailed table of contents

  GERMAN VERSION.

  A king, who dwelt on the Keuterberg, was out hunting one day, when he was seen by three young girls who were watching their cows on the mountain, and the eldest, pointing to him, calls out to the two others, “If I do not get that one, I’ll have none;” the second, from another part of the hill, pointing to the one who was on the king’s right hand, cries “If I don’t get that one, I’ll have none;” and the youngest, pointing to the one who was on the king’s left hand, shouts, “And if I don’t get him, I’ll have none.” When the king has returned home he sends for the three girls, and after questioning them as to what they had said to each other about himself and his two ministers, he takes the eldest girl for his own wife and marries the two others to the ministers. The king was very fond of his wife, for she was fair and beautiful of face, and when he had to go abroad for a season he left her in charge of the two sisters who were the wives of his ministers, as she was about to become a mother. Now the two sisters had no children, and when the queen gave birth to a boy who “brought a red star into the world with him,” they threw him into the river, whereupon a little bird flew up into the air, singing:

  “To thy death art thou sped,

  Until God’s word be said.

  In the white lily bloom,

  Brave boy, is thy tomb.”

  When the king came home they told him his queen had been delivered of a dog, and he said, “What God does is well done.” The same thing happens the two following years: when the queen had another little boy, the sisters substituted a dog and the king said “What God does is well done;” but when she was delivered of a beautiful little girl, and they told the king she had this time borne a cat, he grew angry and ordered the poor queen to be thrown into prison. On each occasion a fisherman who dwelt near the river drew the child from the water soon after it was thrown in, and having no children, his wife lovingly reared them. When they had grown up, the eldest once went with some other boys to fish, and they would not have him with them, saying to him, “Go away, foundling.” The boy, much grieved, goes to the fisherman and asks whether he is a foundling, and the old man tells him the whole story, upon which the youth, spite of the fisherman’s entreaties, at once sets off to seek his father. After walking for many days he came to a great river, by the side of which was an old woman fishing. He accosted her very respectfully, and she took him on her back and carried him across the water. When a year had gone by, the second boy set out in search of his brother, and the same happened to him as to the elder one. Then the girl went to look for her two brothers, and coming to the water she said to the old woman, “Good day, mother. May God help you with your fishing.” (The brothers had said to her that she would seek long enough before she caught any fish, and she replied, “And thou wilt seek long enough before thou findest thy father” — hence their failure in their quest.)

  When the old woman heard that, she became quite friendly, and carried her over the water, gave her a wand, and said to her, “Go, my daughter, ever onwards by this road and when you come to a great black dog, you must pass it silently and boldly, without either laughing or looking at it. Then you will come to a great high castle, on the threshold of which you must let the wand fall, and go straight through the castle and out again on the other side. There you will see an old fountain out of which a large tree has grown whereon hangs a bird in a cage, which you must take down. Take likewise a glass of water out of the fountain, and with these two things go back by the same way. Pick up the wand again from the threshold and take it with you, and when you again pass by the dog strike him in the face with it, but be sure that you hit him, and then just come back here to me.” The maiden found everything exactly as the old woman had said, and on her way hack she found her two brothers who had sought each other over half the world. They went together where the black dog was lying on the road; she struck it in the face and it turned into a handsome prince, who went with them to the river. There the old woman was still standing. She rejoiced much to see them again, and carried them all over the water, and then she too went away, for now she was freed. The others, however, went to the old fisherman, and all were glad that they had found each other again, and they hung the bird in its cage on the wall. But the second son could not settle at home, and took his cross-bow and went a-hunting. When he was tired he took his flute and played on it. The king happened to be also hunting, and hearing the music went up to the youth and said, “Who has given thee leave to hunt here?” “O. no one.” “To whom dost thou belong, then?” “I am the fisherman’s son.” “But he has no children.” “If thou wilt not believe it, come with me.” The king did so, and questioned the fisherman, who told the whole story, and the little bird on the wall began to sing:

  “The mother sits alone

  There in the prison small;

  O King of the royal blood,

  These are thy children all.

  The sisters twain, so false,

  They wrought the children woe,

  There in the waters deep,

  Where the fishers come and go.”

  Then the king took the fisherman, the three little children, and the bird back with him to the castle, and ordered his wife to be taken out of prison and brought before him. She had become very ill and weak, but her daughter gave her some of the water of the fountain to drink and she became strong and healthy. But the two false sisters were burnt, and the maiden was married to the Prince.

  Even in Iceland, as already stated, the same tale has long cheered the hardy peasant’s fire-side circle, while the “wind without did roar and rustle.” That it should have reached that out-of-the-way country through Galland’s version is surely inconceivable, notwithstanding the general resemblance which it bears to the “Histoire des S£urs jalouses de leur Cadette.” It is found in Powell and Magn·sson’s “Legends of Iceland,” second series, and as that excellent work is not often met with (and why so, I cannot understand), moreover, as the story is told with much na´vetÚ, I give it here in full:

  Richard Francis Burton’s translation: detailed table of contents

  ICELANDIC VERSION.

  Not very far from a town where dwelt the king lived once upon a time a farmer. He was well to do and had three daughters; the eldest was twenty years of age, the two others younger, but both marriageable. Once, when they were walking outside their father’s farm, they saw the king coming riding on horseback with two followers, his secretary and his bootmaker. The king was unmarried, as were also those two men. When they saw him, the eldest of the sisters said, “I do not wish anything higher than to be the wife of the king’s shoemaker.” Said the second, “And I of the king’s secretary.” Then the youngest said? “I wish that I were the wife of the king himself.” Now the king heard that they were talking together, and said to his followers, “I will go to the girls yonder and know what it is they were talking about. It seemed to me that I heard one of them say, ‘The king himself.”’ His followers said that what the girls had been chattering about could hardly be of much importance. The king did not heed this, however, but declared that they would all go to the girls and have a talk with them. This they did. The king then asked what they had been talking about a moment ago, when he and his men passed them. The sisters were unwilling to tell the truth, but being pressed hard by the king, did so at last. Now as the damsels pleased the king, and he saw that they were both handsome and fair-spoken particularly the youngest of them, he said that all should be as they had wished it. The sisters were amazed at this, bu
t the king’s will must be done.

  So the three sisters were married, each to the husband she had chosen. But when the youngest sister had become queen, the others began to cast on her looks of envy and hatred, and would have her, at any cost, dragged down from her lofty position. And they laid a plot for the accomplishment of this their will. When the queen was going to be confined for the first time, her sisters got leave to act as her midwives. But as soon as the child was born they hid it away, and ordered it to be thrown into a slough into which all the filth was cast. But the man to whom they had entrusted this task could not bring himself to do it, so put the child on the bank of the slough, thinking that some one might find it and save its life. And so it fell out; for an old man chanced to pass the slough soon afterwards and finding a crying child on the bank, thought it a strange find, took it up and brought it to his home, cherishing it as he could. The queen’s sisters took a whelp and showed it to the king as his queen’s offspring. The king was grieved at this tale, but, being as fond of the queen as of his own life, he restrained his anger and punished her not.

  At the second and third confinement of the queen her sisters played the same trick: they exposed the queen’s children in order to have them drowned in the slough. The man however, always left them on the bank, and it so happened that the same old earl always passed by and took up the children, and carried them home, and brought them up as best he could. The queen’s sisters said that the second time the queen was confined she had given birth to a kitten, and the third time, to a log of wood. At this the king waxed furiously wroth, and ordered the queen to be thrown into the house where he kept a lion as he did not wish this monster to fill his kingdom with deformities. And the sisters thought that they had managed their boat well and were proud of their success. The lion, however, did not devour the queen, but even gave her part of his food and was friendly towards her and thus the queen lived with the lion, a wretched enough life without anybody’s knowing anything about it.

  Now the story turns to the old man who fostered the king’s children. The eldest of these, a boy, he called Vilhjßmr, the second, also a boy, Sigurdr; the third child was a girl and her name was unknown. All that came to him, or with whom he met, the old man would ask if they knew nothing of the children he had found on the bank of the slough. But no one seemed to have the faintest notion about their birth or descent. As the children grew up they were hopeful and fine-looking. The earl had now waxed very old, and, expecting his end, he gave the children this rede, always to ask every one to whom they spoke for news of their family and birth, in order that they might perchance be able at last to trace out the truth. He himself told them all he knew about the matter. After this the old man died, and the children followed closely his advice. Once there came to them an old man, of whom they asked the same questions as of all others. He said he could not give them any hints on the matter himself, but that he could point out one to them who was able to do so. He told them that a short way from their farm was a large stone, whereupon was always sitting a bird which could both understand and speak the tongue of men. It would be best for them, he went on, to find this bird; but there was a difficulty in the matter to be got over first, for many had gone there but none had ever returned. He said that many king’s children had gone to this bird in order to know their future fate, but they had all come short in the very thing needed. He told them that whosoever wanted to mount the stone must be so steady as never to look back, whatever he might hear or see, or whatever wonders seemed to take place around the rock. All who did not succeed in this were changed into stones, together with everything they had with them. This steadiness no one had had yet, but whosoever had it could easily mount the rock, and having once done so would be able to quicken all the others who have been turned to stone there. For the top of the rock was flat, and there was a trap-door on it, wherein the bird was sitting. Underneath the trap-door was water, the nature of which was that it would turn all the stones back to life again. The old man ended by saying, “Now he who succeeds in getting to the top is allowed by the bird to take the water and sprinkle the stone-changed folk, and call them to life again, just as they were before.” This the king’s children thought no hard task. The brothers, however, were the most outspoken about the easiness of the thing. They thanked the old man much for his story and took leave of him.

  Not long after this, Vilhjßmr, the eldest brother, went to the rock. But before he left he said to his brother, that if three drops of blood should fall on his knife at table while he was away, Sigurdr should at once come to the rock, for then it would be sure that he fared like the others. So Vilhjßmr went away, following the old man’s directions, and nothing further is told of him for a while. But after three days, or about the time when his brother should have reached the stone, three drops of blood fell upon Sigurdr’s knife, once, while at table. He was startled at this and told his sister that he must needs leave her, in order to help his brother. He made the same agreement with his sister as Vilhjßmr had before made with him. Then he went away, and, to make the story short, all came to the same issue with him as with his brother, and the blood-drops fell on his sister’s knife, at the time when Sigurdr should have reached the stone.