A crowd of all sorts of people and merchants collected
round him; one offered a sequin, another two, and so on, higher and
higher, till they came to a hundred gold sequins. Just then the emperor
heard of the hair, summoned the man into his presence, and said to him
that he would give him a thousand sequins for it, and he sold it to him.
What was the hair? The emperor split it in two from top to bottom, and
found registered in it in writing many remarkable things, which happened
in the olden time since the beginning of the world. Thus the man became
rich and lived on with his wife and children. And that child, that came
to him in his sleep, was an angel sent by the Lord God, whose will it
was to aid the poor man, and to reveal secrets which had not been
revealed till then.
XIV
THE DRAGON AND THE PRINCE
There was an emperor who had three sons. One day the eldest son went out
hunting, and, when he got outside the town, up sprang a hare out of a
bush, and he after it, and hither and thither, till the hare fled into a
water-mill, and the prince after it. But it was not a hare, but a
dragon, and it waited for the prince and devoured him. When several days
had elapsed and the prince did not return home, people began to wonder
why it was that he was not to be found. Then the middle son went
hunting, and as he issued from the town, a hare sprang out of a bush,
and the prince after it, and hither and thither, till the hare fled into
the water-mill and the prince after it; but it was not a hare, but a
dragon, which waited for and devoured him.
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