After Ertogrul’s death there was an amazing change. Osman and his villagers began to attack their neighbours, extend their boundaries, and form a state. We cannot go on to a consideration of these events without mentioning some traditions of this period which furnish us with a clue to the explanation of this sudden change of a very small pastoral tribe, leading a harmless sleepy existence in the valley of the Kara Su, into a warlike, aggressive, fighting people. Osman once passed the night in the home of a pious Moslem. Before he went to sleep his host entered the room, and placed on a shelf a book, of which Osman asked the title. ‘It is the Koran,’ he responded. ‘What is its object?’ again asked Osman. ‘The Koran’, his host explained, ‘is the word of God, given to the world through his prophet Mohammed.’ Osman took the book and began to read. He remained standing, and read all night. Towards morning he fell asleep exhausted. An angel appeared to him, and said, ‘Since thou hast read my eternal word with so great respect, thy children and the children of thy children shall be honoured from generation to generation.’[20] In Itburnu, a village not far from Eski Sheïr, and also not far from Sugut, lived a Moslem cadi, who dispensed justice and legal advice to those of his faith in that neighbourhood. He had a daughter, Malkhatun, whose hand was demanded in marriage by Osman. But the sheik Edebali, for a period of two years, persisted in refusing his consent to this union.[21] Finally, Osman, when sleeping one night in the home of Edebali, had a dream. He saw himself lying beside the sheik. A moon arose out of the breast of Edebali, and, when it had become full, descended and hid itself in his breast. Then from his own loins there began to arise a tree which, as it grew, became greener and more beautiful, and covered with the shadow of its branches the whole world. Beneath the tree he saw four mountain ranges, the Caucasus, the Atlas, the Taurus, and the Balkans. From the roots of the tree issued forth the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Nile, and the Danube, covered with vessels like the sea. The fields were full of harvests, and the mountains were crowned with thick forests. In the valleys everywhere were cities, whose golden domes were invariably surmounted by a crescent, and from whose countless minarets sounded forth the call to prayer, that mingled itself with the chattering of birds upon the branches of the tree. The leaves of the tree began to lengthen out into swordblades. Then came a wind that pointed the leaves towards the city of Constantinople, which, ‘situated at the junction of two seas and of two continents, seemed like a diamond mounted between two sapphires and two emeralds, and appeared thus to form the precious stone of the ring of a vast dominion which embraced the entire world.’ As Osman was putting on the ring he awoke.[22]