e
owned this to himself and began to weep bitterly. While thus
lamenting, lo and behold! a dragon came up to him and said:--

"What will you give me, boy, if I put all these beasts back into the
horn for you?"

"Half of them," replied the lad.

"I've no fancy for _that_," said the dragon, "I want something else."

"Tell me what it is, and I'll see."

"When you love life best I am to be allowed to come and take the
dearest thing you have, to devour it."

The lad, without exactly knowing what he was doing, agreed.

The dragon rapped three times with its tail and put all the cattle
back in the horn, which the boy then took and went to his father, whom
he found alone. No one knew what had become of the old woman and her
daughter, they had vanished from the house.

When the peasant saw his son grown into a youth he almost lost his
senses with joy, but managed to calm himself. His son opened the
horn, and instantly the fields and surrounding country were so filled
with cattle that every body was bewildered.

"Do all these flocks and herds belong to you?" asked the old man.

"All, father. What shall we do with this multitude of beasts."

"Relieve the sorrows of the widows and the poor," he replied.

The youth followed his father's advice. There was no day the Lord
bestowed on which he did not render some service to those who needed
aid. So it happened that not a single pauper was left in the
neighborhood. News of the wealth and benevolence of the old man's son
reached the imperial court, and as the emperor had a very clever and
beautiful daughter, he sent to ask the youth to become her suitor.

When the young man heard that the emperor wanted him for a son-in-law
he was greatly astonished. But, on being summoned to the court, he
went there and behaved with so much good sense and dignity that the
sovereign was not at all sorry he had cast his eye upon him. The
princess liked him because he was a handsome, proud, spirited
Roumanian youth. Then, after having agreed among themselves, a wedding
was celebrated whose fame spread through the whole country. The young
man's father was there too.

After the dances and amusements of the marriage were over and every
body had gone home, the old man, according to ancient custom, placed
in the room where the emperor's son-in-law and his bride were to
sleep a roll of snow-white bread. Then he, too, went to rest.

What happened during the night? The emperor's son-in-law sudden