w I know why the poor cook was not
to take a bite!"

He slipped another morsel into his mouth, garnished the "fish" carefully
on a platter, and carried it to the king.

[Illustration: _Yirik's horse began to prance and neigh_]

After dinner the king ordered his horse and told
Yirik to come with him for a ride. The king rode on ahead
and Yirik followed.

As they cantered across a green meadow, Yirik's horse began to prance
and neigh.

"Ho! Ho!" he said. "I feel so light that I could jump over a mountain!"

"So could I," the king's horse said, "but I have to remember the old bag
of bones that is perched on my back. If I were to jump he'd tumble off
and break his neck."

"And a good thing, too!" said Yirik's horse. "Why not? Then instead of
such an old bag of bones you'd get a young man to ride you like Yirik."

Yirik almost burst out laughing as he listened to the horses' talk, but
he suppressed his merriment lest the king should know that he had eaten
some of the magic snake.

Now of course the king, too, understood what the horses were saying. He
glanced apprehensively at Yirik and it seemed to him that Yirik was
grinning.

"What are you laughing at, Yirik?"

"Me?" Yirik said. "I'm not laughing. I was just thinking of something
funny."

"Um," said the king.

His suspicions against Yirik were aroused. Moreover he was afraid to
trust himself to his horse any longer. So he turned back to the palace
at once.

There he ordered Yirik to pour him out a goblet of wine.

"And I warn you," he said, "that you forfeit your head if you pour a
drop too much or too little."

Yirik carefully tilted a great tankard and began filling a goblet. As he
poured a bird suddenly flew into the window pursued by another bird. The
first bird had in its beak three golden hairs.

"Give them to me! Give them to me! They're mine!" screamed the second
bird.

"I won't! I won't! They're mine!" the first bird answered. "I picked
them up!"

"Yes, but I saw them first!" the other cried. "I saw them fall as the
maiden sat and combed her golden tresses. Give me two of them and I'll
let you keep the third."

"No! No! No! I won't let you have one of them!"

The second bird darted angrily at the first and after a struggle
succeeded in capturing one of the golden hairs. One hair dropped to the
marble floor, making as it struck a musical tinkle, and the first bird
escaped still holding in its bill a single hair.

In his excitement o