ids
droop. Prop them open and when he sees you he will tell you what he
knows."

So the Youngest Brother went on to the Lion's house and he found the
Lion's old wife standing outside as the Tiger said he would. He did all
the Tiger had told him to do and when the Lion's wife asked him who he
was, he said: 'Don't you know me, old mother? I'm your oldest cub.' Then
the Lion's old wife led him in to the Lion and he propped open the
Lion's drooping eyelids and asked about the Nightingale Gisar.

The old Lion shook his head.

"I have never heard of the Nightingale Gisar. He has never sung in this
wild place. Turn back, young man, and seek him elsewhere. Beyond this is
a country of wilder creatures where you will only lose your life."

"That is as God wills," the Youngest Brother said.

With that he bade the old Lion and his old wife farewell and pushed on
into the farther wilds. The mountains grew more and more rugged, the
plains more parched and barren, and the Youngest Son was hard put to it
to find food from day to day.

Once when he was crossing a desert three eagles swooped down upon him
and it was all he could do to fight them off. He slashed at them with
his sword and succeeded in cutting off the beak of one, a wing of
another, and a leg of the third. He put these three things in his bag as
trophies.

He came at last to a hut where an old woman was baking cakes on the
hearth.

"God bless you, granny!" he said. "Can you give me a bite of supper and
shelter for the night?"

The old woman shook her head.

"My boy, you had better not stop here. I have three daughters and if
they were to come home and find you here, they'd kill you."

But the Youngest Brother insisted that he was not afraid and at last the
old woman let him stay. She hid him in the corner behind the firewood
and warned him to keep still.

Presently the three eagles whom he had maimed came flying into the hut.
The old woman put a bowl of milk on the table, the birds dipped in the
milk, and lo! their feather shirts opened and they stepped out three
maidens. One of them had lost her lips, one an arm, and the third a leg.

"Ah!" they cried to their mother, "see what has befallen us! If only the
youth who maimed us would return the beak and the wing and the leg that
he hacked off, we would tell him anything he wants to know."

At that the Youngest Brother stepped out from behind the firewood and
said:

"Tell me then where I can find the Nigh