ACERTAIN king had a beautiful golden-haired daughter named Sybilla, whose suitors came from every country, though with small success, since the princess had vowed to remain single until one proving to be the mightiest hero of the world should appear.
At no great distance from her father's country lived a horrible giant, every hair of whose head could change, at will, into a fiery serpent. He had one eye, the size of a mill-wheel, and his teeth looked like rocks in a mighty cavern. His name was Furioso, and his strength was known to surpass that of an army of ordinary men. What was the dismay of Sybilla's father when this monster sent to request the lovely princess for his wife! The king turned pale, and walked up and down his palace floor all night, for he knew what it meant to refuse the request of Furioso, who, up to this time, had lived at peace with his neighbor's country. The queen-mother, hearing of the giant's offer, took to her royal bed in kicking hysterics. As to the proud little princess, she curled her pretty red lips scornfully and tossed her head. "I'd like to see him do it, the fright!" was what she said.
In a few days what the king feared had come to pass. The giant Furioso, on receiving the beautiful diplomatic letter the king's secretary had written him (after consultation with all the lords and lawyers of the realm), frowned, scratched his head, which instantly bristled all over with flaming serpents, and opening his mouth sent forth a blood-curdling yell of defiance that resounded in the farthest part of the king's dominions. Without a moment's delay he changed himself into a fearful hurricane, and swept over the country and the palace of the Princess Sybilla. Fences and iron gates, stone walls and marble palaces fell to the ground like card-houses. Forests were uprooted, suspension bridges snapped like cobwebs, villages entire rose up into the clouds and disappeared, with their inhabitants looking in astonishment out of the windows! Cows and horses, dogs and elephants were seen whirling about in the air like Japanese day-fireworks. The king and queen found the roof lifted from above their heads, and went sailing out the open space in their nightcaps. They met all the court blowing wildly about up there, and for some time it was like a mad dance without any bottom to it. Dizzy and terrified, the royal couple at last fell down to earth again, the queen lighting on the fat cook, so that she was not seriously injured—the king falling on a tennis net, which the force of the wind kept suspended like a hammock without any ropes.
Picking themselves up, the first thought of the royal couple was for their beloved princess. As fast as different members of the court and household fell down from the clouds, which they continued to do all the evening and night, the king sent them in search of the princess. Nobody remembered having seen Sybilla anywhere in the air, and her waiting-maid, who dropped somewhere about nine o'clock A.M., next day, wept as she told how she was combing the princess' golden hair with the ivory comb she still held in her hand, when the breeze came which separated them. One thing was certain, the princess had disappeared. When things settled down a little, and people began taking
their breath, a peasant turned up who reported seeing the princess flying along at a fearful rate of speed in the arms of a tall, white-haired man wrapped in a mantle, who hid his face as he passed. "It were just at that moment, your honors," said the peasant, overwhelmed by the questions that rained on him, "I were myself tooken, unexpected-like, and turned upside down by the wind; and when I cum to, there I were atop a haystack in Farmer Grimes' field, five miles from home as the crow flies, a-standing on my head."
The king and queen exchanged horrified glances.
Each remembered to have heard that one of the tricks of Giant Furioso, when he wished to be particularly wicked, was to change to the semblance of a venerable white-haired man. No doubt about it, the whole calamity to court and nation was the work of Furioso, and he had got the princess.
The distracted king set out at the head of his army to visit Furioso's castle. To his surprise, under the giant's name, upon a visiting card inserted above the speaking-trumpet at the gate, were pencilled these words: "Out of town till further notice." The windows were closed, and green shades hung behind them. No smoke came out of the chimneys, and the doors were chained. Evidently the giant had retired to some one of his retreats, where he could not be followed. The king and his army marched back again in gloomy silence.
For six months nothing was heard of the unfortunate Sybilla, till one day three young princes, travelling from a distant country in search of adventure, found a wounded carrier-pigeon on the road. Under its wing was a note, written in pale red ink, on a bit of torn linen cambric. The note gave them considerable trouble to read it, but, at last, the youngest prince, Myrtillo, who had always been the cleverest at school, managed to decipher these words: