One day there came to the court of this King a minstrel from a strange land, in whose playing and singing the Khan took so great pleasure that he gave him many rich presents, and the man went about saying, “In all his dominions the King has no favourite in whom he takes so great delight as in me who am a stranger; neither is there any other who knows how to please him as I.” When the keeper of the gold frog and the parrot heard him make this boast, he answered him saying, “Nay, much greater pleasure hath the Khan in his gold frog and his parrot, of whom I am keeper.” And they strove together. In the end the minstrel said, “To-morrow we will both go up to the Khan together, and while your gold frog dances his most elaborate dance, and your parrot sings his most melodious songs, I also will play and sing my sagas to the Khan; and behold! to whichever the Khan gives ear while he regards not the other, he shall be accounted to have most pleased the Khan.”
The next day they did even as the minstrel had said, and when the minstrel began to sing the Khan paid no more heed at all to the frog or the parrot, but listened only to the strange minstrel’s words.
Then the tamer who had charge of the frog and the parrot, when he saw that the strange minstrel was preferred, lost heart and came no more before the Khan, but went and let fly the parrot, and threw the gold frog out of a window of the palace. As he threw the gold frog out of the window of the palace a crow was flying by, and seeing the frog thrown out, and that it knew not which way to turn, he caught it in his beak and flew away to a ledge of a rock. As he was about to devour her, the frog said,—
“O crow! if thou art minded to devour me, first wash me in water, and then come and devour me.”
And the remark pleased the crow, and he said to the frog,—
“Well spoken, O frog! What is thy name?”
And the frog made answer,—
“Bagatur-Ssedkiltu[1]. That is my name.”
So the crow took her down to wash her in the streamlet which flowed ceaselessly out of a hole in the rock. But the frog had no sooner gained the water than she crept into the hole. The crow called after her,—
“Bagatur-Ssedkiltu! Bagatur-Ssedkiltu, come thou here!”