Celts -- Folklore; Fairy tales; Fairy tales -- Great Britain; Folklore -- Great Britain; Tales -- Great Britain
They went and lifted the ravens, and they took them with them, and the
first town they reached they gave the ravens to a baker, and they asked
him to make a dozen pies of the ravens. They took the pies with them,
and they went forward on their journey. About the mouth of night, and
when they were in a great thick wood, there came four and twenty robbers
who bade them to deliver up their purses; but they said that they had no
purse, but only a little food which they were carrying with them. "Good
is even meat!" said the robbers, and they began to eat it, but had not
eaten much when they fell hither and thither, all stone dead. When they
saw that the robbers were dead they ransacked their pockets, and got
much gold and silver. They went forward till they reached the Knight of
Riddles.
The house of the Knight of Riddles was in the finest place in that
country, and if his house was pretty, his daughter was prettier, and she
had twelve maidens with her only less fair than she. Her like was not on
the surface of the world, altogether so handsome was she; and no one
would get her to marry but the man who could put a question to her
father that he could not solve. The brothers thought that they would go
and try to put a question to him; and the youngest was to stand in place
of gillie to the elder brother. They reached the house of the Knight of
Riddles and this was the question they put to him--"One killed two, and
two killed twelve, and twelve killed four and twenty, and two got out of
it"; and they were to be kept in great majesty and high honour till he
should solve the riddle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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