“How not heard of it? Of course I have. Are we not the servants of him who commanded rigorously and unflinchingly that if such and such a poor man, who sold him two lean cows for his army, should wander along, to receive him kindly? Therefore, this is my word and speech to thee. Art thou, perchance, that man?”
“Of course I am.”
“Is it possible?”
“I’m no one else.”
“In that case sit down here by the fire, drink, and be filled.”
The poor man sat down by the fire, ate, drank, and satisfied himself; then lying on the sheepskin, he fell asleep. When he rose in the morning the horseherds entertained the poor man again, wished him happiness, and showing the right road let him go his way; but they left neither his bag nor his bottle empty. Then he went along the right road. But why multiply words?—for there is an end even to a hundred words; it is enough to know that towards evening he came to the ground of the swineherds of the King of the Crows. He saluted them with, “God give you a good evening.”
“God guard thee,” said the reckoning swineherd.[6] “How is it thou art journeying in this strange land, where even a bird does not go?”
[6] “The reckoning swineherd,”—he who counts the pigs.
“I am looking for the black castle of the King of the Crows. Has my lord elder brother never heard of it in his world-beautiful life?”
“Haho, poor man! How not heard of it? Are we not the servants of the lord of that castle? But art not thou the poor man who sold his Highness the two lean cows?”