nd nothing, and then returned to the water-mill; but when
he got there, there was only an old woman in the mill. The prince
invoked God in addressing her: "God help you, old woman!" The old woman
replied: "God help you, my son!" Then the prince asked her: "Where, old
woman, is my hare?" She replied: "My son, that was not a hare, but a
dragon. It kills and throttles many people." Hearing this, the prince
was somewhat disturbed, and said to the old woman: "What shall we do
now? Doubtless my two brothers also have perished here." The old woman
answered: "They have indeed; but there's no help for it. Go home, my
son, lest you follow them." Then he said to her: "Dear old woman, do you
know what? I know that you will be glad to liberate yourself from that
pest." The old woman interrupted him: "How should I not? It captured me,
too, in this way, but now I have no means of escape." Then he proceeded:
"Listen well to what I am going to say to you. Ask it whither it goes
and where its strength is; then kiss all that place where it tells you
its strength is, as if from love, till you ascertain it, and afterward
tell me when I come." Then the prince went off to the palace, and the
old woman remained in the water-mill. When the dragon came in, the old
woman began to question it: "Where in God's name have you been? Whither
do you go so far? You will never tell me whither you go." The dragon
replied: "Well, my dear old woman, I do go far." Then the old woman
began to coax it: "And why do you go so far? Tell me where your strength
is. If I knew where your strength is, I don't know what I should do for
love; I would kiss all that place." Thereupon the dragon smiled and said
to her: "Yonder is my strength, in that fireplace." Then the old woman
began to fondle and kiss the fireplace, and the dragon on seeing it
burst into a laugh and said to her: "Silly old woman, my strength isn't
there; my strength is in that tree-fungus in front of the house." Then
the old woman began again to fondle and kiss the tree, and the dragon
again laughed, and said to her: "Away, old woman! my strength isn't
there." Then the old woman inquired: "Where is it?" The dragon began to
give an account in detail: "My strength is a long way off, and you
cannot go thither. Far in another empire under the emperor's city is a
lake, in that lake is a dragon, and in that dragon a boar, and in the
boar a pigeon, and in that is my strength." The next morning when the
dragon we