“When I shall have found your third daughter she shall be my wife, and my two brothers may take these two young ladies for their wives.”
They do as Malbrouk said, and he sets out to see his sweetheart. He goes on, and on, and on. All the fowls of the air know Malbrouk. As he was going along he finds a wolf, a dog, a hawk, and an ant, and in their language they cry out:
“Oyhu![5] Malbrouk, Malbrouk!” and saying to him, “Where are you going, Malbrouk? these three days we have been here before this sheep, and cannot agree how to divide it; but you, you shall divide it.”
Malbrouk goes to them, then, trembling lest they should make a division of him, too. He cuts off the head, and gives it to the ant.
“You will have enough to eat, and for your whole household.”
He gives the entrails to the hawk, and for the dog and the wolf he cuts the carcase in half. He left them all well satisfied; and Malbrouk goes on his way in silence, in silence. When he had gone a little way, the ant says:
“We have not given Malbrouk any reward.”
The wolf calls to him to come back. Malbrouk comes trembling, thinking that it was his turn, and that they are going to eat him, without doubt. The ant says to him:
“We have not given you anything, after that you have made such a good division for us; but whenever you wish to become an ant, you have only to say, ‘Jesus, ant!’ and you will become an ant.”
The hawk says to him: “When you wish to make yourself a hawk, you will say, ‘Jesus, hawk!’ and you will be a hawk.”