When he had gone a little way he saw the dead hare with its feet bound; he went on farther and saw the dead stag with its feet bound. He said to himself: ‘My brother must have come this way; this is some of the game he has killed.’ He again went on, and saw the fire burning. Beside it lay Ghvthisavari’s bow and arrow, and he said to himself: ‘Here my brother has met his fate.’ Then he killed some game and roasted it on the fire.
There appeared, no one knows whence, the same old woman. She sat down and waited for her share of roast meat. In eating, the old woman’s behaviour was the same as before. When she had finished the food she was still hungry. She took a little stone, and lifted it to throw at the dogs. The youth thought to himself: ‘It must have been in this way that this old woman swallowed my brother Ghvthisavari.’ He seized the old woman by the throat, cleft her breast open, and took out Ghvthisavari and his dogs. Then he killed the old woman and poured her blood over Ghvthisavari, the dogs, and the bow and arrow. Ghvthisavari and his dogs came back to life, and the bow and arrow were raised from the earth. When Ghvthisavari woke to consciousness he said: ‘Ugh! I have had such a dream.’ Then his brother said: ‘Thou hast not dreamt’; and he told him what had happened.
Ghvthisavari rejoiced, and they both went to their new kinsman, the king. On the way, Ghvthisavari was very melancholy, for he thought that his brother must have married his wife. His brother looked at him and said: ‘May this arrow strike me on the part of my body that has touched thy wife, and kill me.’ Thus spoke Ghvthisavari’s brother, and threw up an arrow. It fell, struck him in the little finger, and he died. Ghvthisavari left his brother, went in, and, when he had learnt all, was deeply grieved. He went, no one knows where, found immortal water, and brought his brother back to life. Then he found him a fair wife, and they dwelt together, happy in fraternal affection and in love.
[1] The expression ‘bird’s milk’ is often used in Georgian to signify a great rarity.
VII
The Serpent and the Peasant
There was once a happy king. Great or small, maid or man, every one was happy in his kingdom, every one was joyful and glad.
Once this monarch saw a vision. In his dream there hung from the ceiling in his house a fox suspended by the tail. He awoke, he could not see what the dream signified. He assembled his viziers, but they also could not divine what this dream presaged.