The Brown Fairy Book

MP3 Audio CD. The Brown Fairy Book

What the Rose did to the Cypress


Once upon a time a great king of the East, named Saman-lalposh, had
three brave and clever sons--Tahmasp, Qamas, and Almas-ruh-baksh.
One day, when the king was sitting in his hall of audience, his eldest
son, Prince Tahmasp, came before him, and after greeting his father with
due respect, said: ‘O my royal father! I am tired of the town; if you
will give me leave, I will take my servants to-morrow and will go into
the country and hunt on the hill-skirts; and when I have taken some game
I will come back, at evening-prayer time.’ His father consented, and
sent with him some of his own trusted servants, and also hawks, and
falcons, hunting dogs, cheetahs and leopards.

At the place where the prince intended to hunt he saw a most beautiful
deer. He ordered that it should not be killed, but trapped or captured
with a noose. The deer looked about for a place where he might escape
from the ring of the beaters, and spied one unwatched close to the
prince himself. It bounded high and leaped right over his head, got out
of the ring, and tore like the eastern wind into the waste. The prince
put spurs to his horse and pursued it; and was soon lost to the sight of
his followers. Until the world-lighting sun stood above his head in the
zenith he did not take his eyes off the deer; suddenly it disappeared
behind some rising ground, and with all his search he could not find any
further trace of it. He was now drenched in sweat, and he breathed
with pain; and his horse’s tongue hung from its mouth with thirst.
He dismounted and toiled on, with bridle on arm, praying and casting
himself on the mercy of heaven. Then his horse fell and surrendered its
life to God. On and on he went across the sandy waste, weeping and with