PRINCE UNEXPECTED.
[The story "Prince Unexpected" is from the Polish. I met with it among A Hundred Simple National Slavonic Tales and Stories in the Original Dialects, which were published in 1865 by the late K. J. Erben, Archivarius of the old town of Prague, with an explanatory vocabulary in the Bohemian (Czech) language, as a "Reading-Book" for Bohemians wishing to make themselves acquainted with the other Slavonic dialects. "Prince Unexpected," O Królewiczu Niespodzianku, is taken from A. J. Glinski's Bajarz Polski (Polish Storyteller). "Immortal Bony" appears again in a Russian story from the Government of Perm, in which the secret of his immortality is discovered, and he is put to death.—A. H. Wratislaw.]
HERE was a king and a queen who had been married for three years, but had no children, at which they were both much distressed. Once upon a time the king found himself obliged to make a visit of inspection round his dominions; he took leave of his queen, set off and was not at home for eight months. Towards the end of the ninth month the king returned from his progress through his country, and was already hard by his capital city, when, as he journeyed over an uninhabited plain during the most scorching heat of summer, he felt such excessive thirst that he sent his servants round about to see if they could find water anywhere and let him know of it at once. The servants dispersed in various directions, sought in vain for a whole hour, and returned without success to the king. The thirst-tormented king proceeded to traverse the whole plain far and wide himself, not believing that there was not a spring somewhere or other; on he rode, and on a level spot, on which there had not previously been any water, he espied a well with a new wooden fence round it, full to the brim with spring water, in the midst of which floated a silver cup with a golden handle. The king sprang from his horse and reached after the cup with his right hand; but the cup, just as if it were alive and had eyes, darted
