“No, my sons,” said their mother, “he has eaten all he needs.”
“Let me see what this roasted sheep-meat is like,” said one of the sons. So he took it up and devoured the whole of it in a couple of mouthfuls.
The prince stayed with the giants over night, and in the morning the giantess said to her sons: “Our guest is greatly troubled because he has fallen in love with an orange fairy and knows not where to find her. Can you show him the way?”
Then the youngest of the forty sons leaped up with a shout of joy and said, “I know where she is!”
“Very well,” said his mother, “take this youth to his fairy that his heart may be at rest.”
So the youngest of the giant brothers took charge of the prince, and they went merrily away together and traveled until at last the giant said: “We shall come presently to a large garden in which there is a spring. Stand beside the spring and do as I tell you, and then lay hold of what you see in the water.”
Soon they came to the garden, and the prince went and stood at the margin of the spring. “Shut your eyes and open your eyes,” said the giant.
The prince obeyed, and then he saw an orange bobbing up and down on the surface of the water. He at once reached down and grasped it. “Now,” said the giant, “take care not to cut open the orange in any place where there is no water, or things will go badly with you. That orange contains your fairy.”
Then they parted, one to go to the right and the other to the left. The sultan’s son went on and on and on, and in the course of time came to a clear spring beneath the wide-spreading branches of a big tree. He drank of the water and said to himself, “Here is a good place to cut open my orange.”
Scarcely had he cut through the peel when out popped a lovely damsel. Not even the full moon could be more beautiful. She immediately called for water, and he gave her some from the spring. After talking together for a time he told her he would go to a town that was near and hire a carriage to take them to his father’s palace.