I know that this is true which I tell, because since then there have been no cruel giants to keep a body from getting a taste of the Fruit of Happiness now and then, if a body chooses to travel that far to find it. But that is neither here nor there, and what I have to tell is this:
The young prince rode away towards home with the White Bird sitting behind him, the Sword of Brightness hanging by his side, and the Fruit of Happiness in his pocket.
By and by he came to the place where the two houses stood, the one on the one side of the road, and the one on the other, and there he took out his Book of Knowledge to have a peep at it, and this was what it said:
“Buy no black sheep.”
“Prut!” says the prince, “what should I want with black sheep I should like to know?”
By and by he met a great crowd, and in the midst of all the rest were his two brothers with their hands tied behind them with stout ropes.
And what were they going to do with the two? That was what the prince would like to know.
“Why,” said those who held them, “they have spent all their money at the great house over yonder, and have run up a score for good things besides, and now they are packing off to prison because they cannot pay what they owe.”
“Come, come,” says the prince, “let them go and I will pay their reckoning;” and so he did, and that was what the Book of Wisdom meant by buying black sheep.
After that they all stepped away homeward, right foot foremost; for since the young prince had brought the Fruit of Happiness along with him, there was no need of the other brothers going to look for it.