The sultan went home, and he and the sultana each ate half the apple, and within a year a little prince was born to them. So joyful was the sultan over this event, that he scattered gold coins among the poor, restored to freedom his slaves, and gave a magnificent banquet to his courtiers.
The years passed until the prince had reached the age of fourteen, and still his parents fondled him and treated him like a child. One day he said to his father, “I want you to make me a little marble palace, and let there be two fountains in it, one of which shall run with honey, and the other with butter.”
So dearly did the sultan love his son, that he had the little marble palace made with the two fountains in it just as the lad had desired. When the sultan’s son went into his completed palace and sat looking at the bubbling fountains of butter and honey, an old woman came with a pitcher in her hand and would have filled it at one of the fountains. But the sultan’s son threw a stone at the old woman’s pitcher and broke it in pieces. Then the old woman went away without saying a word.
Next day she was there again with a pitcher, which she was about to fill when the prince threw a stone and shattered it. Then the old woman silently departed. On the third day also she came to fill a pitcher, and the prince threw a stone that broke the pitcher to fragments. “O youth!” said she, “’tis the will of God that you shall fall in love with an orange fairy.” With these words she quitted him.
From that time on the prince gradually became pale and thin. The sultan observed this and sent for the wise men and the doctors, but they could not cure the prince of his illness. At last the youth said to his father: “My dear daddy, these wise men of yours labor in vain to help me. I am in love with an orange fairy, and I shall never be better till I find her.”
“You are the only child I have in the wide world,” groaned the sultan. “If you leave me to search for this fairy, perchance you would never return, and my happiness would be destroyed.”
Time went on and the prince continued to slowly wither away, and he became so listless that most of the time he lay with closed eyes as if in a heavy sleep. So his father saw it would be best for the youth to go and, if possible, find the orange fairy. As soon as he had the sultan’s permission, the prince went away over the mountains and through the valleys. After traveling for many days he came to a vast plain, and in the midst of it met a giantess as tall as a church spire. She was chewing gum, and the sound of her chewing could be heard a half-hour’s journey off.
“Good day, madam,” said the youth.
“Good day, little sonny,” she responded. “If you had not spoken so politely, I would have gobbled you up. Whither are you going?”