“Alas! dear little mother,” sighed the youth, “such a terrible misfortune has befallen me that I can neither tell thee nor answer thy question.”
“Nay, come, out with it, my son,” urged the Mother of Devils.
“Well then, my sweet little mother,” cried the youth, and he sighed worse than before, “I have fallen violently in love with the three Oranges. If only I might find my way thither!”
“Hush!” cried the Mother of Devils, “it is not lawful to even think of that name, much less pronounce it. I and my sons are its guardians, yet even we don’t know the way to it. Forty sons have I, and they go up and down the earth more than I do, perchance they may tell thee something of the matter.” So when it began to grow dusk towards evening, ere yet the devil-sons had come home, the old woman gave the King’s son a tap, and turned him into a pitcher of water. And she did it not a moment too soon, for immediately afterwards the forty sons of the Mother of Devils knocked at the door and cried: “Mother, we smell man’s flesh!”
“Nonsense!” cried the Mother of Devils. “What, I should like to know, have the sons of men to do here? It seems to me you had better all clean your teeth.” So she gave the forty sons forty wooden stakes to clean their teeth with, and out of one’s tooth fell an arm, and out of another’s a thigh, and out of another’s an arm, till they had all cleaned their teeth. Then they sat them down to eat and drink, and in the middle of the meal their mother said to them: “If now ye had a man for your brother, what would ye do with him?”
“Do,” they replied, “why love him like a brother, of course!”
Then the Mother of Devils tapped the water-jar, and the King’s son stood there again. “Here is your brother!” cried she to her forty sons.
The devils thanked the King’s son for his company with great joy, invited their new brother to sit down, and asked their mother why she had not told them about him before, as then they might all have eaten their meal together.
“Nay but, my sons,” cried she, “he does not live on the same sort of meat as ye; fowls, mutton, and such-like is what he feeds on.”
At this one of them jumped up, went out, fetched a sheep, slew it, and laid it before the new brother.