He went, he went, he went, he went farther than anybody ever went—he came to a great forest. As he went through the forest, he saw a deer running, in a great state of alarm. The youth stopped, and fixed his gaze on it; then the deer came up and fell on its face before him. The youth asked: ‘What ails thee?’ ‘The prince pursues me, and on thee depends my safety.’ The youth took the deer with him and went on. A huntsman met him, and asked: ‘Whither art thou leading the deer?’ The youth replied: ‘One king has sent it as a gift to another king, and, lo! I am taking it.’ The youth thus saved the deer from death, and the deer said: ‘A time will come when I shall save thy life.’
The youth went on his way: he went, he went, he went, so far he went, good sir, that the ‘three day colt’ (of fable) could not go so far. He looked, and, lo! a frightened eagle perched on his shoulder, and said: ‘Youth, on thee depends my safety!’ The youth protected it also from its pursuer. Then the eagle said to him: ‘Some day I shall do thee a service.’
The youth went on: he went through the forest, he went, he went, he went, he went farther than he could, he went a week, two weeks, a year and three months. Then he heard some fearful rumbling, roaring, thunder and lightning—something was coming through the forest, breaking down all the trees. A great jackal appeared, and ran up to the youth, saying: ‘If thou wilt thou canst protect me; the prince is pursuing me with all his army.’ The youth saved the jackal, as he had saved the other animals. Then the jackal said: ‘Some day I shall help thee.’
The youth went on his way, and, when he was out of the wood, came to a town. In this town he found a castle of crystal, in the courtyard of which he saw a great number of young men, some dying and some dead. He asked the meaning of this, and was told: ‘The king of this land has a daughter, a maiden queen; she has made a proclamation that she will wed him that can hide himself from her; but no man can hide himself from her, and all these men has she slain, for he that cannot hide himself from her is cast down from the top of the castle.’
When the youth heard this, he at once arose, and went to the maiden. They bowed themselves each to the other. The maiden asked him: ‘Wherefore art thou come hither?’ The youth answered: ‘I come for that which others have come for.’ She immediately called her viziers together, and they wrote out the usual contract.
The youth went out from the castle, came to the seashore, sat down, and was soon buried in thought. Just then, something made a great splash in the sea, came and swallowed the youth, carried him into the Red Sea, there they were hidden in the depths of the sea, near the shore. The youth remained there all that night.
When the maiden arose next morning she brought her mirror and looked in it, but she found nothing in the sky, she looked on the dry land, and found nothing there, she looked at the sea—and then she saw the youth in the belly of the fish, which was hiding in the deep waters. After a short time, the fish threw up the youth on the place where it had found him. He went merrily to the maiden. She asked: ‘Well, then, didst thou hide thyself?’ ‘Yes, I hid myself.’ But the maiden told him where he had been, and how he got there, and added: ‘This time I forgive thee, for the cleverness thou hast shown.’
The youth set out again, and sat down in a field. Then something fell upon him, and took him up into the air, lifted him up into the sky, and covered him with its wing. When the maiden arose next morning, she looked in her mirror, she gazed at the mountain, she gazed at the earth, but she found nothing, she looked at the sky, and there she saw how the eagle was covering the youth. The eagle carried the youth down, and put him on the ground. He was joyful, thinking that the maiden could not have seen him; but when he came to her she told him all.
Then he fell into deep melancholy, but the maiden, being struck with wonder at his cunning in hiding himself, told him that she again forgave him. He went out again, and, as he was walking in the field, the deer came to him and said: ‘Mount on my back.’ He mounted, and the deer carried him away, away, away over all the mountains that were there, and put him in a lair. When the maiden arose next morning, she found him, and when he came back to her she said: ‘Young man, it seems that thou hast many friends, but thou canst not hide thyself from me; yet this day also I forgive thee.’ The youth went sadly away; he had lost confidence.
When he sat down in the field, an earthquake began, the town shook, lightning flashed, thunder rolled, and when a thunderbolt had fallen, there leapt out from it his friend the gigantic jackal, and said to him: ‘Fear not, O youth!’ The jackal had recourse to its wonted cunning, it began to scrape at the earth: it dug, it dug, it dug, and burrowed right up to the place where the maiden dwelt, and then it said to the youth: ‘Stay thou here, she will look at the sky, the mountain, the sea, and when she cannot find thee she will break her mirror; when thou hearest this, then strike thy head through the ground and come out.’