drink too much of the juice of the wine, then shall
he become a beast like the pig, and if then he still continues to
drink, he shall behave foolishly like a monkey."

And that is why, unto this day, too much wine makes a man silly.

Og himself often drank too much, and many years afterward, when he was
a servant to the patriarch Abraham, the latter scolded him until he
became so frightened that he dropped a tooth. Abraham made an ivory
chair for himself from this tooth. Afterwards Og became King of
Bashan, but he forgot his compact with Noah and instead of helping the
Israelites to obtain Canaan he opposed them.

"I will kill them all with one blow," he declared.

Exerting all his enormous strength he uprooted a mountain, and raising
it high above his head he prepared to drop it on the camp of the
Israelites and crush it.

But a wonderful thing happened. The mountain was full of grasshoppers
and ants who had bored millions of tiny holes in it. When King Og
raised the great mass it crumbled in his hands and fell over his head
and round his neck like a collar. He tried to pull it off, but his
teeth became entangled in the mass. As he danced about in rage and
pain, Moses, the leader of the Israelites, approached him.

Moses was a tiny man compared with Og. He was only ten ells high, and
he carried with him a sword of the same length. With a mighty effort
he jumped ten ells into the air, and raising the sword, he managed to
strike the giant on the ankle and wound him mortally.

Thus, after many years, did the terrible giant of the flood perish for
breaking his word to Father Noah.

The Fairy Princess of Ergetz

I

In a great and beautiful city that stood by the sea, an old man lay
dying. Mar Shalmon was his name, and he was the richest man in the
land. Propped up with pillows on a richly decorated bed in a luxurious
chamber, he gazed, with tears in his eyes, through the open window at
the setting sun. Like a ball of fire it sank lower and lower until it
almost seemed to rest on the tranquil waters beyond the harbor.
Suddenly, Mar Shalmon roused himself.

"Where is my son, Bar Shalmon?" he asked in a feeble voice, and his
hand crept tremblingly along the silken coverlet of the bed as if in
search of something.

"I am here, my father," replied his son who was standing by the side
of his bed. His eyes were moist with tears, but his voice was steady.

"My son," said the old man, slowly, and with some di