Variation on 'The Singing Tree, the Bird Which Tells the Truth, and the Water That Makes Young'

VARIATION ON 'THE SINGING TREE, THE BIRD WHICH TELLS THE TRUTH, AND THE WATER THAT MAKES YOUNG'

We have also the more common version of this story--of an aged king with three sons. He reads of this water, and the three sons successively set out to fetch it. The two first fail, and stop, drinking, &c., in a certain city. The youngest meets an old woman, who tells him how to charm all the beasts in a forest he has to pass through, and how

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to get the water, but he is not to take anything else. But he steals the bird, and the magic horse as well, and when he gets to the forest finds all the animals awake. The old woman appears again, and gives him a magic stick, with the aid of which he passes. He finds his brothers against the advice of the old lady, and they throw him into a pit and take away the water, the horse, and the bird; but the water has no effect in their hands. The old woman appears, and sends a fox to help him out of the pit. He comes home, the horse neighs, the bird sings, he gives the water to his father, and from one hundred years old he becomes twenty.

E. HIRIGARAY.