Then days passed and days passed, and God sent the child, as the man had said, and his hair was so yellow and his face was so bright that they named him Samson; that is, “The Little Sun.” He grew up a stout lad, the strongest in the neighborhood. He never tasted either grapes or wine, and every year his hair grew longer and longer, till they braided it in seven big braids hanging down his back. But if the boys with whom he played ever said anything about the length of Samson’s hair, they said it when Samson could not hear them; for they were very careful not to make him angry. Nobody could throw so high, or jump so far, or run so fast as Samson. At last, it became time for Samson to be married, and he fell in love with a Philistine girl who lived in a place called Timnath. And Samson went down one day, with his father and mother, to call upon the father and mother of the girl, and there came out a young lion from a vineyard and roared against Samson. And Samson caught the lion and killed him with his hands. Then, after a while, as the wedding day drew near, Samson and his father and mother went again to Timnath to the marriage. And as they went, they passed the place where Samson had killed the lion, and behold, among the dry bones of the lion there was a swarm of bees; and Samson took some of the [Illustration: SAMSON KILLS THE LION WITH HIS HANDS] honey and gave it to his father and mother, and they went along the way eating it. Now it was the custom in those days, at weddings, to tell riddles. And Samson told a riddle. And his riddle was this: “Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.” And the wedding guests tried to guess the riddle: one said this, and another said that, but none was right. The game was that if any of the thirty guests could find out the riddle within seven days, Samson was to give every man a shirt and a suit of clothes; but if they could not guess it, they were to give him thirty shirts and thirty suits of clothes. So the seventh day came, and nobody had guessed the riddle. Now the guests had gone to Samson’s wife and said, “If you don’t make your husband tell you the answer to the riddle and then tell us, we will burn down your house.” So Samson’s wife came to him every day, and cried and cried, and said, “You don’t love me. If you loved me you would tell me the answer to the riddle.” But he said, “I have not told even my father or my mother.” At last, however, on the seventh day, she begged so hard that Samson told her: and straight she went and told the wedding guests. So just as the sun was going down on the evening of the seventh day, they came to Samson, boasting and laughing, and they said, “What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion?” Thus they guessed the riddle, and Samson paid the forfeit of thirty shirts and thirty suits of clothes. XXII THE SECRET OF STRENGTH