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The Sea-Maiden

A mermaid offered a fisherman much fish in return for his son. He said he had none. In Campbells' version, she offered him grains: three for his wife, three for a mare, three for a dog, three to plant in the yard; then there would be three sons, three foals, three puppies, and three trees, and she should have one son when he was three. In Jacobs's version, she merely said he would have a son, and when the boy was twenty, she would take him.

In Campbell's version, the mermaid let him put her off until the boy was twenty.

In both, the father grew troubled. The son (or oldest son) wormed the problem out of him, and told him to get him a good sword. He set out on horseback, with a dog, and came to where a dog, a falcon, and an otter quarreled over a sheep carcass. He split it up for them if they came with him and aided him.

He took service with a king, as a cowherd, and his pay was according to the milk. Nearby, the grass was poor, and so were the milk and his wages, but he found a green valley. When he pastured the cows there, a giant challenged him for grazing in his valley. He killed the giant. Taking none of its treasure, he took back the cows, which gave good milk. The next day, he took the cows further and had to fight another giant, with help from the dog. The third day after that, he took them still further and met a hag who tried to trick him, but he killed her with the help of the dog.

When he went back, everyone was lamenting. A monster with three heads lived in the loch, and got someone every year; this year the lot had fallen to the king's daughter. The general said he would rescue her, and the king had promised to marry him to the daughter if he did. The son went to see. When the monster appeared, the general ran off. The princess saw a doughty man on a black horse, with a black dog, appear. He fought the creature and had off one head, drawing a withy through it. He gave it the princess, who gave him a ring. He went back to his cows, and the general threatened to kill her if she did not say that he did it. The next day, the king's daughter had to go back, because there were two heads left. The son came again and slept, telling her to rouse him when the creature came; she did, putting an earring of hers on his ear as he said, and they fought, and he cut off the second head. The same thing happened the third time, and the creature died.

The king sent for the priest to marry his daughter to the general. The king's daughter said that first he must take the heads from the withy. He could not. Finally, the cowherd did. The king's daughter said the actual killer had her ring and two earrings, and he produced him. The king, displeased, ordered him better dressed; the king's daughter said he had good clothing, and he dressed in golden clothing from the giant's castle to marry her.

One day they walked by the loch, and the sea-maiden took the prince. The princess was advised by an old smith to wear her jewelry and offered it to the sea-maiden for the prince, in Campbell's variant, which she agreed to, or by a soothsayer to play music and not stop until the sea-maiden gave her a sight of the prince, which let the prince call on the falcon and escape.

But the princess was captured.

The same person who advised the prince told him that on an island, there was a white deer. If it were caught, a hoodie crow would jump from it; if it were captured, a trout would spring from it, but there would be an egg in the trout's mouth, and if it were broken, the sea-maiden would die.

The sea-maiden sank any boat that came to the island, but his horse and dog jumped to it. The dog chased the deer. The prince called on the dog from the sheep carcass, and with its aid, caught it. The hoodie sprang out, and with the falcon from the carcass, he caught it. The trout sprang out, and with the aid of the otter from the carcass, he caught it. The sea-maiden told him she would do what he asked if he would spare her. He demanded his wife. When she gave her back, he squeezed the egg and killed her.

The Seven Ravens

A peasant had seven sons and no daughter until finally a daughter was born, but she was sickly. He sent his sons to fetch water for her—in the German version, to be baptized; in the Greek, from a healing spring—but in their haste, they dropped the jug in the well. When they did not return, their father thought they had left it off to play and cursed them. Unexpectedly, it turned them into ravens, as he said.

When the sister was grown, she set out in search of her brothers. She attempts to get help first from the sun, then the moon, then the morning star, and the star does help her, giving her a chicken bone (in the German) or a bat's foot (in the Greek) and tell her she will need it to save her brothers. She finds the Glass Mountain where they are. In the Greek version, she opens it with the bat's foot; in the German, she has lost the bone, and chops off a finger to use as a key. She gets into the mountain, where a dwarf tells her that her brothers will return. She takes some of their food and drink and leaves in the last cup a ring from home.

When her brothers return, she hides, and they turn into human form and ask who has been at their food. The last one finds the ring, and hopes it is their sister, in which case they are saved. She emerges, and they return home. and happy ever after.

The Sharp Grey Sheep

A queen died, and the king remarried. The stepmother was cruel to the princess and sent her to watch the sheep while not sending her enough food to survive. A sharp (horned) grey sheep helped her by bringing her food. The stepmother, knowing she could not be getting enough food to survive from her, went to a henwife, and the henwife set her daughter to spy. The princess told the henwife's daughter to set her head on her knee, and she would dress her hair; the henwife's daughter slept, and the sheep came to help her. The henwife's daughter had an eye on the back of her head that was not asleep; she watched through it and told her mother.

On learning that the sheep was helping her, the stepmother ordered the sheep killed. The sheep told the princess to gather her bones and hooves in the hide and it would return to her. The princess did, but she forgot the little hooves, so the sheep was lame, but it still kept her fed.

A prince saw the princess and asked about her. The henwife's daughter told her mother, and the henwife warned the queen. The queen therefore brought her stepdaughter home to work about the house and sent her own daughter out to tend the sheep.

One day, when the stepdaughter walked outside, the prince gave her a pair of golden boots. He wanted to see her at church, but her stepmother would not let her go, so she went secretly, sat where the prince could see her, and left quickly before her stepmother could spy her there. However, she lost her shoe in the mud, and the prince declared that he would marry whomever the shoe fit.

The queen got her daughter's foot to fit by cutting off her toes, but a bird pointed out the blood to the prince. The prince finally found the princess and married her.

The Tale of the Shifty Lad, the Widow's Son

A widow wanted her son to learn a trade. He insisted that he wanted to be a thief. She predicted he would end up hanging from a bridge. One day he did not go to church, and told her that the first trade she heard when she came out would be his. He came to the path and shouted "Thievery" in a disguised voice. She again predicted he would hang from the bridge but gave him to the Black Gallows Bird to learn the trade. The man taught him, and then said they must rob a man who had sold his cattle. On Halloween, they hid in the loft. The shifty lad went down and stirred up the cattle, sending people out; while they were gone, he stole nuts and sewed a leather hide to the thief. He cracked nuts, though the thief warned him he would be heard. He was heard, and the people came, and the thief ran off with the hide still attached. The people said he was stealing the hide and chased him. The Shifty Lad stole the gold and silver while they were gone, and brought them to the thief; they split them.

Soon, a tenant sent a man to get a whether to give as a wedding gift. The Shifty Lad bet his master that he could steal it from the man's back. When he was coming, the lad put a dirty shoe in his path; the man said that if he had the other one, he would clean this one and have a pair. The Shifty Lad ran ahead of his, and put the shoe in the way again. The man went back to get the other, and the lad took the wether and the shoes and won his bet. The tenant sent the same man after a kid. The lad bleated like the wether, and when the man searched for it, thinking to come back with both, the lad stole the kid. The third time, the tenant directed him to never let the wether go, and so he brought it home.

The shifty lad had his master hang him, and let him down when he kicked his legs. He praised it, and his master let him hang him, but the lad killed him. His wife was angry, and the lad fled. He took service with a wright who lived next to the king's storehouse, and broke into it to steal. The gifts persuaded the wright and his wife to let him. At the advice of the Seanagal , the king set a hogshead of pitch to catch the thief, and it caught the wright. The lad cut off his head to prevent their learning who he was.

The king displayed the body to discover who grieved at the sight, but when the wright's wife cried out, he cut his foot and pretended she cried over that. Then the body was hung from a tree for the same reason. The lad took a horse with casks of whiskey by them, as if he were hiding from the soldiers. They chased him, and he fled, leaving the horse. They took it back, found the whiskey, and became drunk. The lad took the body. The king sent a black pig about to dig up the body. When it rooted about the wright's house, the lad sent the soldiers inside to eat and drink while it searched. He killed the pig and buried it while they ate. The king sent men to discover where people had pig's flesh they could not account for; the lad killed the soldiers sent to his house, and then started a rumor that the soldiers meant to massacre them, so all the people killed the soldiers.

The Seanagal advised to give a ball, since the man would be the boldest and dance with the princess; when the lad did so, the Seanagal marked him with a black dot, but the lad saw it and marked the Seanagal himself with two and twenty other men with one. The king decided that he was beaten, and that he wanted so clever a man for his son-in-law. He had all the men with the black dots put in a room, and had a child give one an apple. The lad drew him with a shaving and a drone, and the child gave him the apple. They took the shaving and drone, but the child remembered them and still gave him the apple, so the shifty lad married the princess.

One day, while they walked on the bridge, the lad told the princess that his mother said he would hang from that bridge. She said that if he wished to go over the wall, she would hold him by her handkerchief. He did, and hanged there, but a cry went up about a fire, startling the princess. She let go. The lad fell and died.

Sinbad the Sailor

Sinbad the Porter and Sinbad the Sailor

Like the 1001 Nights the Sinbad story-cycle has a frame story, which goes as follows: in the days of Haroun al-Rashid, Caliph of Baghdad, a poor porter (one who carries goods for others in the market and throughout the city) pauses to rest on a bench outside the gate of a rich merchant's house, where he complains to Allah about the injustice of a world which allows the rich to live in ease while he must toil and yet remain poor. The owner of the house hears, and sends for the porter, and it is found they are both named Sinbad. The rich Sinbad tells the poor Sinbad that he became wealthy, "by Fortune and Fate", in the course of seven wondrous voyages, which he then proceeds to relate.
[edit] The First Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor

After dissipating the wealth left to him by his father, Sinbad goes to sea to repair his fortune. He sets ashore on what appears to be an island, but this island proves to be a gigantic sleeping whale on which trees have taken root ever since the world was young. Awakened by a fire kindled by the sailors, the whale dives into the depths, the ship departs without Sinbad, and Sinbad is saved by the chance of a passing wooden trough sent by the grace of Allah. He is washed ashore on a densely wooded island. While exploring the deserted island he comes across one of the king's grooms. When Sinbad helps save the King's mare from being drowned by a sea horse—not a seahorse as we know it, but a supernatural horse that lives underwater—the groom brings Sinbad to the king. The king befriends Sinbad and so he rises in the king's favour becoming a trusted courtier. One day, the very ship on which Sinbad set sail docks at the island, and he reclaims his goods (still in the ship's hold). Sinbad gives the king his goods and in return the king gives him rich presents. Sindbad sells these presents for a great profit. Sinbad returns to Baghdad where he resumes a life of ease and pleasure. With the ending of the tale, Sinbad the sailor makes Sinbad the porter a gift of a hundred gold pieces, and bids him return the next day to hear more about his adventures.
[edit] The Second Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor

On the second day of Sinbad's tale-telling—but the 549th night of Scheherazade's, for she has been breaking her tale each morning in order to arouse the interest of the homicidal king, and make him spare her life for one more night—Sinbad the sailor tells how he grew restless of his life of leisure, and set to sea again, "possessed with the thought of traveling about the world of men and seeing their cities and islands." Accidentally abandoned by his shipmates again, he finds himself stranded in an island which contains Roc eggs. After attaching himself to a roc, he is transported to a valley of giant snakes which can swallow elephants, and a Roc which prey upon them. The floor of the valley is carpeted with diamonds, and merchants harvest these by throwing huge chunks of meat into the valley which the birds then carry back to their nests, where the men drive them away and collect the diamonds stuck to the meat. The wily Sinbad straps one of the pieces of meat to his back and is carried back to the nest along with a large sack full of precious gems. Rescued from the nest by the merchants, he returns to Baghdad with a fortune in diamonds, seeing many marvels along the way.
[edit] The Third Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor
A sailing port in the Arabian Sea.

| Restless for travel and adventure, Sinbad sets sail again from Basra. But by ill chance he and his companions are cast up on an island where they are captured by, "a huge creature in the likeness of a man, black of colour, ... with eyes like coals of fire and eye-teeth like boar's tusks and a vast big gape like the mouth of a well. Moreover, he had long loose lips like camels', hanging down upon his breast and ears like two Jarms falling over his shoulder-blades and the nails of his hands were like the claws of a lion." This monster begins eating the crew, beginning with the Reis (captain), who is the fattest. (Burton notes that the giant "is distinctly Polyphemus").

Sinbad hatches a plan to blind the beast (again, obvious parallels with the story of Polyphemus in Homer's Odyssey), with the two red-hot iron spits with which the monster has been kebabing and roasting the ship's company. He and the remaining men escape on a raft they had constructed the day before. However due to the Giant's mate most of the escaping men are hit by rocks and killed. After further adventures (including a gigantic python from which Sinbad escapes thanks to his quick wits), he returns to Baghdad, wealthier than ever.
[edit] The Fourth Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor
Sindbad the Sailor and the valley of the Diamonds.

Impelled by restlessness Sinbad takes to the seas again, and, as usual, is shipwrecked. The naked savages amongst whom he finds himself feed his companions a herb which robs them of their reason (Burton theorises that this might be bhang), prior to fattening them for the table. Sinbad realises what is happening, and refuses to eat the madness-inducing plant. When the cannibals have lost interest in him, he escapes. A party of itinerant pepper-gatherers transports him to their own island, where their king befriends him and gives him a beautiful and wealthy wife.

Too late Sinbad learns of a peculiar custom of the land: on the death of one marriage partner, the other is buried alive with his or her spouse, both in their finest clothes and most costly jewels. Sinbad's wife falls ill and dies soon after, leaving Sinbad trapped in an underground cavern, a communal tomb, with a jug of water and seven pieces of bread. Just as these meagre supplies are almost exhausted, another couple—the husband dead, the wife alive—are dropped into the cavern. Sinbad bludgeons the wife to death and takes her rations.

Such episodes continue; soon he has a sizable store of bread and water, as well as the gold and gems from the corpses, but is still unable to escape, until one day a wild animal shows him a passage to the outside, high above the sea. From here a passing ship rescues him and carries him back to Baghdad, where he gives alms to the poor and resumes his life of pleasure. (Burton's footnote comments: "This tale is evidently taken from the escape of Aristomenes the Messenian from the pit into which he had been thrown, a fox being his guide. The Arabs in an early day were eager students of Greek literature.") Similarly, the first half of the voyage resembles the Circe episode in The Odyssey, with certain differences: while a plant robbed Sinbad's men of their reason in the Arab tales, it was only Circe's magic which "fattened" Odysseus' men in The Odyssey. It is in an earlier episode, featuring the 'Lotus Eaters', that Odysseus' men are fed a similar magical fruit which robs them of their senses.
[edit] The Fifth Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor
Sindbad's fifth voyage

"When I had been a while on shore after my fourth voyage; and when, in my comfort and pleasures and merry-makings and in my rejoicing over my large gains and profits, I had forgotten all I had endured of perils and sufferings, the carnal man was again seized with the longing to travel and to see foreign countries and islands." Soon at sea once more, while passing a desert island Sinbad's crew spots a gigantic egg that Sinbad recognizes as belonging to a roc. Out of curiosity the ship's passengers disembark to view the egg, only to end up breaking it and having the chick inside as a meal. Sinbad immediately recognizes the folly of their behavior and orders all back aboard ship. However, the infuriated parent rocs soon catch up with the vessel and destroy it by dropping giant boulders they have carried in their talons.[8]

Shipwrecked yet again, Sinbad is enslaved by the Old Man of the Sea, who rides on his shoulders with his legs twisted round Sinbad's neck and will not let go, riding him both day and night until Sinbad would welcome death. (Burton's footnote discusses possible origins for the old man—the orang-utan, the Greek triton—and favours the African custom of riding on slaves in this way.[9]

Eventually, Sinbad makes wine and tricks the Old Man into drinking some, then Sinbad kills him after he has fallen off and escapes. A ship carries him to the City of the Apes, a place whose inhabitants spend each night in boats off-shore, while their town is abandoned to man-eating apes. Yet through the apes Sinbad recoups his fortune, and so eventually finds a ship which takes him home once more to Baghdad.
[edit] The Sixth Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor

"My soul yearned for travel and traffic". Sinbad is shipwrecked yet again, this time quite violently as his ship is dashed to pieces on tall cliffs. There is no food to be had anywhere, and Sinbad's companions die of starvation until only he is left. He builds a raft and discovers a river running out of a cavern beneath the cliffs. The stream proves to be filled with precious stones and becomes apparent that the island's streams flow with ambergris. He falls asleep as he journeys through the darkness and awakens in the city of the king of Serendib (Ceylon, Sri Lanka), "diamonds are in its rivers and pearls are in its valleys". The king marvels at what Sinbad tells him of the great Haroun al-Rashid, and asks that he take a present back to Baghdad on his behalf, a cup carved from a single ruby, with other gifts including a bed made from the skin of the serpent that swallowed the elephant[10] ("and whoso sitteth upon it never sickeneth"), and "a hundred thousand miskals of Sindh lign-aloesa", and a slave-girl "like a shining moon". And so Sinbad returns to Baghdad, where the Caliph wonders greatly at the reports Sinbad gives of the land of Ceylon.
[edit] The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor

The ever-restless Sinbad sets sail once more, with the usual result. Cast up on a desolate shore, he constructs a raft and floats down a nearby river to a great city. Here the chief of the merchants weds Sinbad to his daughter, names him his heir, and conveniently dies. The inhabitants of this city are transformed once a month into birds, and Sinbad has one of the bird-people carry him to the uppermost reaches of the sky, where he hears the angels glorifying God, "whereat I wondered and exclaimed, 'Praised be God! Extolled be the perfection of God!'" But no sooner are the words out than there comes fire from heaven which all but consumes the bird-men. The bird-people are angry with Sinbad and set him down on a mountain-top, where he meets two youths who are the servants of God and who give him a golden staff; returning to the city, Sinbad learns from his wife that the bird-men are devils, although she and her father are not of their number. And so, at his wife's suggestion, Sinbad sells all his possessions and returns with her to Baghdad, where at last he resolves to live quietly in the enjoyment of his wealth, and to seek no more adventures.

(Burton includes a variant of the seventh tale, in which Haroun al-Rashid asks Sinbad to carry a return gift to the king of Serendib. Sinbad replies, "By Allah the Omnipotent, O my lord, I have taken a loathing to wayfare, and when I hear the words 'Voyage' or 'Travel,' my limbs tremble". He then tells the Caliph of his misfortunate voyages; Haroun agrees that with such a history "thou dost only right never even to talk of travel". Nevertheless, a command of the Caliph is not to be gainsayed, and Sinbad sets forth on this, his uniquely diplomatic voyage. The king of Serendip is well pleased with the Caliph's gifts (which include, inter alia, the food tray of King Solomon) and showers Sinbad with his favour. On the return voyage the usual catastrophe strikes: Sinbad is captured and sold into slavery. His master sets him to shooting elephants with a bow and arrow, which he does until the king of the elephants carries him off to the elephants' graveyard. Sinbad's master is so pleased with the huge quantities of ivory in the graveyard that he sets Sinbad free, and Sinbad returns to Baghdad, rich with ivory and gold. "Here I went in to the Caliph and, after saluting him and kissing hands, informed him of all that had befallen me; whereupon he rejoiced in my safety and thanked Almighty Allah; and he made my story be written in letters of gold. I then entered my house and met my family and brethren: and such is the end of the history that happened to me during my seven voyages. Praise be to Allah, the One, the Creator, the Maker of all things in Heaven and Earth!".

In some versions we return to the frame story, in which Sinbad the Porter may receive a final generous gift from Sinbad the Sailor. In other versions the story cycle ends here, and there is no further mention of Sinbad the Porter.

The Silent Princess

A pasha's son one day was playing with his golden ball, and three times broke a woman's pitcher. She cursed him to fall in love with the silent princess, and vanished. As he grew older, he wondered who the silent princess was, and in time wondered so much that he became ill. His father asked what had made him ill, in hopes that it would reveal his cure, and the son revealed the curse and asked permission to search the world for her. His father granted it.

The prince set out with an old steward, and after three old men gave them directions and warnings, he finally found the mountain where the princess sat behind seven veils and never spoke. The mountain was surrounded by human bones and mourners, who warned the prince that he needed the leave of the sultan to be escorted into the princess's presence, and the bones could tell him the effect of his decision. The prince could not think of a way to make her talk, so he put off speaking to the sultan until he had one.

While there, the prince bought a nightingale, and found it could talk. It asked him why he was so sad, and when he told the bird his story, she told him to go, and when the princess would not speak, he must tell her he would instead converse with the candlestick, where the nightingale would be hidden. The prince obeyed. The princess would not speak to him, so he spoke to the candlestick, and the nightingale said it had been years since anyone had spoken to her, so she would tell him a story.

She described how a king set three wooers to learn something in six months, and the cleverest would win the princess. One learned how to travel a year's journey in an hour; another to see things at a distance; the third to cure any illness. They met again, and the second saw the princess was dying, the first brought the third to her, and the third one cured her. Then the prince and the nightingale argued whether the second or the third had done the better, until the princess burst out that it would have been useless without the first, who should have her.

A slave ran to tell the sultan, but the princess persuaded him, by signs, to make the prince make her speak three times. She destroyed the candlestick.

The next night, the nightingale hid on a pillar, and the prince talked to it. The nightingale told of a woman who had scorned wooers for many years, until she found a white hair and decided to pick one. She set them to tasks. She told the first wooer that her father had died, and proved to be a wizard because his grave was empty; the man's task was to lay in the grave three hours, so the woman would be free of him. He lay down there at once. She told a second wooer that a wizard had taken the place of her father's body in the grave; if he stood over the wizard with a stone and smashed his head if he moved, she would be free. The man took such a stone and sat down at once. She told a third wooer that a wizard had taken the place of her father's body in the grave, but if he brought him before her, she would be free. He immediately brought the body before her. Then the nightingale argued whether the second or third wooer had done the best, until the princess said it was the first. That day, she destroyed the pillar.

The third night, the nightingale hid in the curtains by the door, and told the prince of a carpenter, a tailor, and a student who lived in the same house. The carpenter made a statue of a woman; the tailor dressed it; the student prayed to heaven that she might become a living woman. The nightingale and prince quarreled over whether the carpenter or the tailor had the best right to marry her, until the princess said that the student's prayer meant he should win her.

At that, her veils fell, and she agreed to marry the prince. They sent for the woman whose pitchers he had broken, and she became a nurse to their children.

The Singing, Springing Lark

A man goes on a journey and asks each of his daughters what she would like. The oldest wants diamonds, the second pearls, and the youngest a singing, springing lark, which he is unable to obtain. On his journey home, he sees a tree with a lark, and orders his servant to catch it. A lion springs out and threatens to kill him for trying to steal the lark. To spare his life, the lion demands the man bring the first thing to meet him on his return home, and gives him the lark. The man fears it will be his youngest daughter who greets him, but his servant persuades him to accept the bargain.

His youngest daughter is the first to greet him. When told of his promise, she sets out the next morning. At the lion's castle, she is greeted by lions, and at night, all of them turn into humans. She marries the lion whose lark her father had tried to take and lives with him, sleeping by day.

One night the lion tells her that her oldest sister is marrying and offers to send her with his lions. She goes, and her family is glad to see her. After her return, the lion tells her that her second sister is marrying, and she says he must go with her and their child. The lion tells her that if any candlelight falls on him, he will be transformed into a dove for seven years. The youngest daughter has a chamber built to protect him, but the door is made of green wood, and it warps, making a crack. When her sister's wedding procession goes by, candlelight falls on him, and he turns into a dove.

The dove tells his wife that for every seven steps she takes, he will drop a feather and a drop of blood, and perhaps she can track him by that, and flies off.

When the seven years are nearly up, the youngest daughter loses the trail. When she climbs up to the sun and asks after the white dove; the sun does not know, but gives her a casket. She then asks the moon, who does not know, but gives her an egg. She asks the night wind, and it can not help her but tells her to wait for the others; the east and west wind can not, but the south wind says that the dove was again a lion and fighting a dragon that is an enchanted princess near the Red Sea. The night wind advises her to strike the lion and dragon with a certain reed, to allow the lion to win and both creatures to regain their form, and then to escape on the back of a griffin. It gives her a nut that will grow to a nut tree in the middle of the sea; which would allow the griffin to rest.

The youngest daughter stops the fight, but the princess also regains her form and takes the man who had been a lion with her on the griffin. The daughter follows until she finds a castle where the princess and her husband are to be married.

She opens the casket and finds a dazzling dress in it. She brings it to the castle, and the princess buys it from her, the price being that the daughter is to spend the night in her husband's bedchamber. But it is to no avail because the princess has a page give him a sleeping draught. Though the daughter pleads with him, he thinks it is the wind's whistling.

The next day, she opens the egg. It holds a chicken with twelve golden chicks. The princess again buys them for the same price, but this time her husband asks the page what was the wind the previous night, and the page confesses to the draught. He does not drink it the second night, and he and his wife flee on the griffin to their home.