Atondido Stories
“You can never succeed in rescuing me, I fear,” replied the
princess. “At the door of this palace there is a giant on guard
who never sleeps.”
“Never mind,” replied the prince. “I’ll put him to sleep.”
Just at that moment the giant himself strode into the dungeon.
He had heard voices there. “Sing, my little bird, sing,” com-
manded the prince to his singing bird.
At the first burst of melody the giant went to sleep there in
the dungeon, though he had never before taken a wink of sleep
in all his life.
“This beetle of mine has gnawed an entrance through the
great wall which surrounds the land of the giants,” said the
prince to the captive princess. “To escape we’ll not have to climb
the high wall.”
“What of the guard who stands on top of the wall with his
head reaching up to the clouds?” asked the princess. “Will he
not spy us?”
“My singing bird has put him to sleep, too,” replied the
prince. “If we hurry out he will not yet be awake.”
“I have been confined here in this dungeon so long that I fear
I have forgotten how to walk,” said the princess.
“Never mind,” replied the prince. “My butterfly will bear
you upon his wings.”
With the lovely princess borne safely upon the butterfly’s
wings the prince swiftly escaped from the land of the giants. The
giant on the wall yawned in his sleep as they looked up at him.
“He is good for another hour’s nap,” remarked the prince.
The prince returned to his father’s kingdom as soon as he
could find the way back. He took with him the lovely princess,
and the singing bird, and the gnawing beetle, and the strong-
winged butterfly.
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