Roumanian Fairy Tales | Page 5

wood for him.
The year was now over. Stan was anxious only about one things--how he was to drag so many ducats home.
In the evening, the dragon and his mother sat talking together in their room; but Stan listened in the entry.
"Woe betide us!" said the dragon: "this fellow upsets us terribly. Give him money, even more than he has, only let us get rid of him."
Ah, yes! but the she-dragon cared for money.
"Let me tell you one thing," she said: "you must kill this man to-night."
"I am afraid of him, mother," he answered in terror.
"Have no fear," replied his mother. "When you see that he is asleep, take your club and strike him in the middle of the forehead."
So it was agreed. Ah, yes! but Stan always had a bright idea at the right time. When he saw that the dragon and his mother had put out the light, he took the pig's trough, and laid it bottom upward in his place, covered it carefully with a shaggy coat, and lay down himself under the bed, where he began to snore like a person who is sound asleep.
The dragon went out softly, approached the bed, raised his club, and struck one blow on the spot where Stan's head ought to have been. The trough sounded hollow, Stan groaned, and the dragon tiptoed back again.
Stan then crept out from under the bed, cleaned it, and lay down, but was wise enough not to close an eye all night long.
The dragon and his mother were rigid with amazement when they saw Stan come in the next morning as sound as an egg.
"Good morning!"
"Good morning; but how did you sleep last night?"
"Very well," replied Stan. "Only I dreamed that a flea bit me just here on the forehead, and it seems as if it still pained me."
"Just listen to that, mother!" cried the dragon. "Did you hear? He talks about a flea, and I hit him with my club!"
This was too much for the she-dragon. She perceived that it isn't worth while to argue with such people. So they hastened to fill his sacks, in order to get rid of him as quickly as possible. But poor Stan now began to perspire. When he stood beside the bags, he trembled like an aspen leaf, because he was unable to lift even one of them from the ground. So he stood staring at them.
"Why are you standing there?" asked the dragon.
"H'm! I'm waiting," replied Stan, "because I would rather stay with you another year. I'm ashamed to have any body see me carry away so little at one time. I'm afraid people will say, 'Look at Stan Bolovan, who in one year has grown as weak as a dragon.'"
Now, it was the two dragons' turn to be frightened.
They vainly told him that they would give him seven--nay, three times seven or even seven times seven--sacks of ducats, if he would only go away.
"I'll tell you what," said Stan, at last. "As I see you don't want to keep me, I won't force you to do so. Have it your own way. I'll go. But, that I need not be ashamed before the people, you must carry this treasure home for me."
The words were scarcely out of his mouth, when the dragon picked up the sacks and set off with Stan.
Short and smooth, yet always too long, is the road that leads home. But, when Stan found himself close to his house, and heard his children's shouts, he began to walk slower. It seemed too near; for he was afraid that, if the dragon knew where he lived, he might come to take away the treasure. Only he was puzzled to find any way of carrying his money home alone.
"I really don't know what to do," he said, turning to the dragon. "I have a hundred hungry children, and fear you may fare badly among them, because they are very fond of fighting. But just behave sensibly, and I'll protect you as well as I can."
A hundred children! That's no joke! The dragon--though a dragon of dragon race--let the bags fall in his fright. But, from sheer terror, he picked them up again. Yet his fear did not gain the mastery till they entered the court-yard. When the hungry children saw their father coming with the loaded dragon, they rushed toward him, each one with a knife in the right hand and a fork in the left. Then they all began to whet the knives on the forks, shrieking at the top of their lungs, "We want dragon meat!"
This was enough to scare Satan himself. The dragon threw down the sacks, and then took to flight, so frightened that since that time he has never dared to come back to the world.

The Wonderful Bird.
Once upon