er a tiny fire in a brass bowl in the winter, to thaw her
frozen and benumbed hands.

Even the laborers in the fields, who were mainly dull-witted people
with no learning whatsoever, heard the news; and they actually
pondered over it and wondered whether it meant that they would never
more be hungry and wretchedly clad.

One who thought deeply was a shepherd lad. He loved to bask lazily in
the sun, to listen to the birds chirruping, and to all the sounds of
the air and the fields and the forests. He seemed to understand them;
the murmuring of the brooks on a warm day was like a gentle cradle
song lulling him to sleep; on a day when the wind howled, its sulky
growl as it dashed over the stones warned him that floods might come,
and that he must move his flocks to safer ground.

"I wonder," he mused, "if I shall learn to read the written word and
even to pen it myself. I could then write the song of the brook and
the birds, so that others should know it."

And musing thus, he fell asleep. He slept longer than usual, and when
he awoke, he was alarmed to see that the sun had set. Darkness was
falling fast, and he had his flock to see safely home. The cows and
sheep had begun to collect themselves as a matter of habit, and it was
their noise that woke him. They were already trudging the well-known
route, and all he had to do in following was to see that none strayed,
or tumbled into the brook.

All went well until he came in sight of home. Then a huge bird, a ziz,
bigger than several houses, appeared in the sky and swooped down on
the cows and sheep.

The shepherd beat the monster off as long as he could with a big
stick, while the affrighted animals scampered hastily homeward. The
ziz however, was evidently determined not to be balked of its prey.
It dug its talons deep into the flanks of an ox that had stampeded in
the wrong direction and was lagging behind the others.

The poor animal bellowed in pain, and the shepherd, rushing to the
rescue, seized it by the forelegs as it was being raised from the
ground. Curling his leg round the slender trunk of a tree, the young
man began a struggle with the ziz. The mighty bird, its eyes glowing
like two signal lamps, tried to strike at him with his tremendous
beak, one stroke of which would have been fatal.

In the fast gathering darkness it missed, fortunately for the
shepherd, but the thrust of the beak caught the upper part of the tree
trunk. It snapped under the blow,