Time passed on, and one morning Gon lay before the house door, basking
in the sun. He looked lazily at the world stretched out before him,
and saw in the distance a big ruffian of a cat teasing and ill-treating
quite a little one. He jumped up, full of rage, and chased away the big
cat, and then he turned to comfort the little one, when his heart nearly
burst with joy to find that it was Koma. At first Koma did not know him
again, he had grown so large and stately; but when it dawned upon her
who it was, her happiness knew no bounds. And they rubbed their heads
and their noses again and again, while their purring might have been
heard a mile off.
Paw in paw they appeared before the princess, and told her the story of
their life and its sorrows. The princess wept for sympathy, and promised
that they should never more be parted, but should live with her to the
end of their days. By-and-bye the princess herself got married, and
brought a prince to dwell in the palace in the park. And she told him
all about her two cats, and how brave Gon had been, and how he had
delivered her from her enemy the serpent.
And when the prince heard, he swore they should never leave them, but
should go with the princess wherever she went. So it all fell out as
the princess wished; and Gon and Koma had many children, and so had the
princess, and they all played together, and were friends to the end of
their lives.
How the Dragon Was Tricked
From Griechtsche und Albanesische Marchen, von J. G. von Hahn. (Leipzig:
Engelmann. 1864.)
Once upon a time there lived a man who had two sons but they did not
get on at all well together, for the younger was much handsomer than his
elder brother who was very jealous of him. When they grew older, things
became worse and worse, and at last one day as they were walking through
a wood the elder youth seized hold of the other, tied him to a tree, and
went on his way hoping that the boy might starve to death.
However, it happened that an old and humpbacked shepherd passed the tree
with his flock, and seeing the prisoner, he stopped and said to him,
‘Tell me, my son why are you tied to that tree?’
‘Because I was so crooked,’ answered the young man; ‘but it has quite
cured me, and now my back is as straight as can be.’
‘I wish you would bind me to a tree,’ exclaimed the shepherd, ‘so that
my back would get straight.’
‘With all the pleasure in life,’ replied the youth. ‘If you will loosen
these cords I will tie you up with them as firmly as I can.’
This was soon done, and then the young man drove off the sheep, leaving
their real shepherd to repent of his folly; and before he had gone very
far he met with a horse boy and a driver of oxen, and he persuaded them
to turn with him and to seek for adventures.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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