The Nightingale in the Mosque - The Story of the Sultan's Youngest Son and the Princess Flower o' the World

"

The old woman shook her head.

"My boy, you had better not stop here. I have three daughters and if they were to come home and find you here, they'd kill you."

But the Youngest Brother insisted that he was not afraid and at last the old woman let him stay. She hid him in the corner behind the firewood and warned him to keep still.

Presently the three eagles whom he had maimed came flying into the hut. The old woman put a bowl of milk on the table, the birds dipped in the milk, and lo! their feather shirts opened and they stepped out three maidens. One of them had lost her lips, one an arm, and the third a leg.

"Ah!" they cried to their mother, "see what has befallen us! If only the youth who maimed us would re turn the beak and the wing and the leg that he hacked off, we would tell him anything he wants to know."

At that the Youngest Brother stepped out from behind the firewood and said:

"Tell me then where I can find the Nightingale Gisar and you shall have back your beak and your wing and your leg."

He opened his bag and the maidens were overjoyed to see their beak and their wing and their leg. Then they told the Youngest Brother all they knew about the Nightingale Gisar.

"Far from here," they said, "there is a Warrior Princess, so beautiful that men call her Flower o' the World. She has the Nightingale Gisar in a golden cage hanging in her own chamber. The chamber door is guarded by a lion and a wolf and a tiger for the Flower o' the World knows that she will have to marry the man who steals from her the Nightingale Gisar."

"How can a man enter the chamber of the Flower o' the World?" the Youngest Brother asked.

"For a few moments at midnight," the sisters told him, "the three animals sleep. During those few moments a man could enter the chamber, get the Nightingale Gisar, and escape. But even then he might not be safe for the Flower o' the World might gather her army together and pursue him."

"Now tell me how to reach the palace of that Warrior Princess, Flower o' the World.