princess through it and instantly mounts on high with her. Now is the marksman’s opportunity: he shoots at the fiend and down he comes, “like a hundred of bricks” (as we _don’t_ say in the classics), at the same time letting go the princess, who is cleverly caught by the seventh hero, and is none the worse for her aerial journey. The princess chooses the seventh for her husband, as he is the youngest and best looking, but her father the king rewards his companions handsomely and all are satisfied. The charming history of Prince Ahmad and his fairy bride is “conspicuous from its absence” in all these versions, but it reappears in the Italian collection of Nerucci: “Novelle Popolari Montalesi,” No. xl., p. 335, with some variations from Galland’s story: A certain king had three daughters, and a neighbouring king had three sons, who were much devoted to the chase. They arrived at the city of the first king, and all fell in love with his daughter[165] and wanted to marry her. Her father said it was impossible to content them all, but if one of them would ask her, and if he pleased her, he would not oppose the marriage. They could not agree which it was to be, and her father proposed that they should all travel, and the one who at the end of six months brought the most beautiful and wonderful present should marry her. They set out in different directions and at the end of six months they meet by appointment at a certain inn. The eldest brings a magic carpet on which he is wafted whithersoever he will. (It goes a hundred miles in a day.) The second brings a telescope which shows whatever is happening a hundred miles away. The youngest brings three stones of a grape, one of which put into the mouth of a person who is dying restores him to life. They at once test the telescope by wishing to see the princess, and they find her dying—at the last gasp indeed. By means of the carpet they reach the palace in time to save her life with one of the grape-stones. Each claims the victory. Her father, almost at his wits’ end to decide the question, decrees that they shall shoot with the crossbow, and he who shoots farthest shall win the princess. The second brother shoots farther than the first; but the youngest shoots so far that they cannot find where his arrow has fallen. He persists in the search and falls down a deep hole, from the bottom of which he can scarcely see a speck of the sky. There an ogre (_mago_) appears to him and also a bevy of young fairy maidens of extreme beauty. They lead him to a marvellous palace, give him refreshments and provide him with a room and a bed, where every night one of the fairies bears him company. He spends his days in pleasure until the king’s daughter is almost forgotten. At last he begins to think he ought to learn what has become of his brothers, his father, and the lady. The chief fairy however, tries to dissuade him, warning him that evil will befall him if he return to his brothers.