Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1891 edition. Excerpt: ...the maidens went together and begged the queen to give it to her. She refused, but the youngest went and took it by stealth. As soon as she had put it on, she said to the dancers: " Farewell. Tell my husband, when he returns, that, until he has worn out three pairs of iron shoes, he need not hope to find me." When our hero returned, they repeated to him the words of his wife. Without losing a moment, he bought three pairs of iron shoes, and set out in search of her. On the spot at which he had arrived when the last pair was worn out he built a khan, where travellers might eat and drink without paying, and he questioned them as to what they had seen on their journeys. One said, "Not far from here I had let my water-cask fall, and it rdlled to the bottom of a ravine. When I went down to find it, I saw twelve maidens bathing in a fountain." At these words our hero rushed out of doors, and the traveller having described to him the spot, he approached the bathers unperceived, seized the dress of his wife, and threw it into the fire which they had kindled in order to wash their clothes. Her dress burnt, the Beauty had no means of escaping him again, for in it was contained all her magic power, and she returned with her husband to the king. The story of the " Maiden promised to the Sun " is made up of two separate episodes, both of which have their variants in the folk-lore of the Greeks and Bulgarians. In the Greek variant' of the first part of the story, the maiden is stolen by a ray of sunshine which enters through the key-hole, and carries her to his master. Two hares are commissioned to take her back to her mother, who silvers the tail of the surviving one as a reward for its services. A Bulgarian ballad1 also describes the stealing of a...
