“Oh, what a child thou art!” cried the Mother of Devils. “Dost thou not know that thou must first cook it for him?”
Then they skinned the sheep, made a fire, roasted it, and placed it before him. The King’s son ate a piece, and after satisfying his hunger, left the rest of it. “Why, that’s nothing!” cried the devils, and they urged him again and again to eat more. “Nay, my sons,” cried their mother, “men never eat more than that.”
“Let us see then what this sheep-meat is like,” said one of the forty brothers. So they fell upon it and devoured the whole lot in a couple of mouthfuls.
Now when they all rose up early in the morning, the Mother of Devils said to her sons: “Our new brother hath a great trouble.”—“What is it?” cried they, “for we would help him.”
“He has fallen in love with the three Oranges!”—“Well,” replied the devils, “we know not the place of the three Oranges ourselves, but perchance our aunt may know.”
“Then lead this youth to her,” said their mother; “tell her that he is my son and worthy of all honour, let her also receive him as a son and ease him of his trouble.” Then the devils took the youth to their aunt, and told her on what errand he had come.
Now this Aunt of the Devils had sixty sons, and as she did not know the place of the three Oranges, she had to wait till they came home. But lest any harm should happen to this her new son, she gave him a tap and turned him into a piece of crockery.
“We smell man’s flesh, mother,” cried the devils, as they crossed the threshold.
“Perchance ye have eaten man’s flesh, and the remains thereof are still within your teeth,” said their mother. Then she gave them great logs of wood that they might pick their teeth clean, and so be able to swallow down something else. But in the midst of the meal the woman gave the piece of crockery a tap, and when the sixty devils saw their little human brother, they rejoiced at the sight, made him sit down at table, and bade him fall to if there was anything there he took a fancy to. “My sons,” said the Mother of the Devils to her sixty sons when they all rose up early on the morrow, “this lad here has fallen in love with the three Oranges, cannot you show him the way thither?”
“We know not the way,” replied the devils; “but perchance our old great-aunt may know something about it.”