“Sorrowless mother has borne me; with a comb she combed my little locks, dressed me in costly garments, and stepping aside shaded her eyes and looked at me: ‘Does my child look well in costly garments? In costly garments my child is a priceless child!’ Thus my mother always spoke of me! And then I learned and know it well that a scarlet gown cannot be made without a master, nor a child be comforted without a mother, nor a drunkard ever become rich, nor a dice-player be in good renown; and I was taught by my parents to be a well-dressed boy, who was born devoid of everything.” The ferrymen heard the good fellow’s song, took the young man across the swift river, and took nothing from him for the ferrying. The good people gave him to drink and to eat, took off his tavern sackcloth, gave him peasant’s clothes, and spoke to him: “You are a good fellow, so go to your home, to your beloved, respected parents, to your father and mother dear, greet your parents, father and mother, and receive from them the parental blessing!” From there the youth went to his home. When he was in the open field, evil Misery had gone before him; it met the youth in the open field, and began to caw above the youth, like an ill-omened crow above a falcon. Misery spoke the following words: “Wait! you have not gone away from me, good fellow! Not merely for a time have I, Misery Luckless-Plight, attached myself to you; I shall labour with you to your very death! And not I, Misery, alone, but all my family, and there is a goodly race of them: we are all gentle and insinuating, and he who joins our family will end his days among us! Such is the fate that awaits you with us. Even if you were to be a bird of the air, or if you went into the blue sea as a fish, I would follow you at your right hand.” The youth flew as a clear falcon, and Misery after him as a white gerfalcon; the youth flew as a steel-blue dove, and Misery after him as a grey hawk; the youth went into the field as a grey wolf, and Misery after him with hounds; the youth became the steppe-grass in the field, and Misery came with a sharp scythe, and Luckless-Plight railed at him: “You, little grass, will be cut down; you, little grass, will lie on the ground, and the boisterous winds will scatter you!” The youth went as a fish into the sea, and Misery after him with close-meshed nets, and Misery Luckless-Plight railed at him: “You, little fish, will be caught at the shore, and you will be eaten up and die a useless death!” The youth went on foot along the road, and Misery at his right hand. It taught the youth to live as a rich man, by killing and robbing, so that they might hang the young man for it, or might put him with a stone in the water. The youth bethought himself of the road of salvation, and at once the youth went to a monastery to be shorn a monk, and Misery stopped at the holy gates,--no longer clung to the youth.