Sanartia came to the palace earlier, but they did not recognise him. When the swineherd drove in his swine, his wife was about to beat him, saying: ‘Why hast thou lost the swine.’ But at that moment Sanartia appeared before the princess, was angry with her, and said: ‘If thou wert a good woman thou wouldst not make thy husband feed swine.’... They knew at once that it was Sanartia, and were much amazed, saying: ‘His leg was cut off at the knee, how has he replaced his leg?’ Sanartia ordered them to bring the princess’s husband: he made her wash him well with her own hands, bring clothes, and dress him in noble apparel. When Sanartia was leaving for home, he called the princess and her parents, and said to them: ‘If you do not treat the prince as becomes his rank, I shall come at once, and it will fare ill with you.’ He took leave of them all and went home.
[1] Ocho-Kochi, literally, ‘the goat-man,’ occupies an important place in Mingrelian mythology. He is a satyr, a wild man of the woods, represented as an old man with a long beard, his body covered with hair.
[2] The word translated ‘nurse’ is dzidze, which means not only a nurse but any woman, married or single, who has been adopted into relationship by the ceremony of a man taking her breast between his teeth. This creates a degree of kinship inferior only to that between mother and son. The custom still exists in Mingrelia.
VII
The Shepherd Judge
In a certain land, there was once a king who had four viziers to judge the people. Once these judges uttered a remarkable sentence. At that time there came to the king a certain shepherd, who spoke in a manner that pleased the king, so he commanded the viziers: ‘Show this shepherd the sentence you pronounced.’ When the shepherd had examined the decree of the viziers, it did not please him; he took it and altered it from beginning to end.
When the king saw this, he said to the shepherd: ‘Since thou art so skilled in judging, be thou a judge.’ The shepherd refused, and said: ‘As long as I have eyes I cannot judge, if you put out both my eyes then I will be a judge.’ Finally he persuaded them to put out his eyes. They built him a great, fine house, they gave him scribes, furnished him with everything befitting his office, and made the shepherd supreme judge.
He began to do justice in such an upright manner that people flocked to him from every side. Everybody went to him for justice: great and small, master and servant, old and young, clergy and laity, friend and enemy—in a word, all who had suits with anybody came to him, every one praised and blessed his decisions.