He crouched on his throne and imagined he saw angels and demons
and fairies 234

The monster was battering down the door of the synagogue 244

Hanina and his wife followed the giant frog 252

The giant bird did not seem to notice its burden at all 258

Then the door slowly opened and a figure in white stood in the
entry 276

JEWISH FAIRY TALES AND LEGENDS

The Palace of the Eagles

East of the Land of the Rising Sun there dwelled a king who spent all
his days and half his nights in pleasure. His kingdom was on the edge
of the world, according to the knowledge of those times, and almost
entirely surrounded by the sea. Nobody seemed to care what lay beyond
the barrier of rocks that shut off the land from the rest of the
world. For the matter of that, nobody appeared to trouble much about
anything in that kingdom.

Most of the people followed the example of the king and led idle,
careless lives, giving no thought to the future. The king regarded the
task of governing his subjects as a big nuisance; he did not care to
be worried with proposals concerning the welfare of the masses, and
documents brought to him by his advisors for signature were never
read. For aught he knew they may have referred to the school
regulations of the moon, instead of the laws of trading and such like
public matters.

"Don't bother me," was his usual remark. "You are my advisors and
officers of state. Deal with affairs as you think best."

And off he would go to his beloved hunting which was his favorite
pastime.

The land was fertile, and nobody had ever entertained an idea that bad
weather might some year affect the crops and cause a scarcity of
grain. They took no precautions to lay in stocks of wheat, and so when
one summer there was a great lack of rain and the fields were parched,
the winter that followed was marked by suffering. The kingdom was
faced by famine, and the people did not like it. They did not know
what to do, and when they appealed to the king, he could not help
them. Indeed, he could not understand the difficulty. He passed it off
very lightly.

"I am a mighty hunter," he said. "I can always kill enough beasts to
provide a sufficiency of food."

But the drought had withered away the grass and the trees, and the
shortage of such food had greatly r