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

Then envy and hatred filled their hearts and they began cursing and complaining to think that he who was the Youngest had succeeded where they had failed.

"We'll be the laughing-stock of the whole country!" they said, "if we let him come home carrying the Nightingale Gisar! Let us take the bird while he sleeps and hurry home with it. Then if he comes home later and says it was he who really found the bird no one will believe him."

So they beat their brother into insensibility and tore his clothes to rags to make him think that he had been set upon by robbers, and then taking the golden cage and the Nightingale Gisar they hurried home and presented themselves to their father, the Sultan.

"Here, O father," they said, "is the Nightingale Gisar! To get this glorious bird for you we have endured all the perils in the world!"

"And your Youngest Brother," the Sultan asked, "where is he?"

"The Youngest? Think no more of him, father, for he is unworthy to be your son. Instead of searching the wide world for the Nightingale Gisar, he settled down in the first city he reached and lived a life of idleness and ease. Some say he became a barber and some say he opened a coffee-house and spent his days chatting with passing travelers. He has not come home with us for no doubt it shames him to know that we have succeeded where he has failed."

The Sultan was grieved to hear this evil report of his Youngest Son, but he was overjoyed to have the Nightingale Gisar. He had the golden cage carried to the mosque and hung beside the fountain in the court.

But imagine his disappointment when the bird refused to sing!

"Let him who found the Nightingale come to the mosque," the Dervish said in his droning sing-song voice, "and then the Nightingale will sing."

The Sultan immediately sent for his two sons. They came but still the bird was silent.

"See now," the Sultan said, "my two sons are here and yet the bird is silent."

But the Dervish would only repeat:

"Let him who found the Nightingale come to the mosque and then the Nightingale will sing.