“Alas, your Majesty, how can I build such a place as that?” cried Hassan. “I have nothing of my own, as you know, but only what you yourself have given me, and in all your kingdom there is not enough ivory to build a whole palace of it.”
“Nevertheless, you must provide it,” answered the King, “and if you do not do so, your life shall answer for it.”
When Hassan heard these words, he was greatly troubled. He went out from the King’s presence and returned home, and there he prepared to die, for he knew not where to find enough ivory to build one room, to say nothing of a whole palace.
Suddenly, in the midst of his despair, he remembered the three feathers that he had plucked from the crow’s wing. He feared they were lost, but after some search he found them laid away in a corner with the rags he had once worn. He took them up, and blowing one of them into the air he called upon the crow to come and help him.
Almost at once he heard outside a heavy flapping of wings, and a large crow flew in through the window and lighted beside him.
“What do you wish?” asked the crow, “and why have you called upon me? Are you in trouble?”
“Trouble enough,” answered Hassan, “and trouble that may end in my losing my life.” He then told the crow what it was that the King had demanded of him, and that he did not see how it would be possible for him to carry it out.
“Do not despair over this,” answered the crow. “It is not such a difficult matter as you seem to think. Ask the King to give you forty cartloads of wine, with bullocks to pull them, and forty slaves to drive the carts, and do you come away with me into the forest, and I may be able to get the ivory for you.”