Page:Turkish fairy tales and folk tales (1901).djvu/160

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

him make an ivory palace for the bird there and then. "I know thou canst get the ivory," said the Padishah.

"Alas, my lord Padishah!" lamented the youth, "whence am I to get all this ivory from?"

"That is thy business," replied the Padishah. "Thou mayest search for it for forty days, but if it is not here by that time thy head shall be where now thy feet are."

The youth was sore troubled, and while he was still pondering in his mind which road he should take, the crow came flying up to him, and asked him what he was grieving about so much. Then the youth told her what a great trouble that one little bird had brought down upon his head.

"Why this is nothing at all to fret about," said the crow; "but go to the Padishah, and ask him for forty wagon-loads of wine!" So the youth returned to the palace, got all that quantity of wine, and as he was coming back with the cars, the crow flew up and said: "Hard by is a forest, on the border of which are forty large trenches, and as many elephants as there are in the wide world come to drink out of these trenches. Go now and fill them with wine instead of water. The elephants will thus get drunk and tumble down, and thou wilt be able to pull out their teeth and take them to the Padishah."