Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/241

not belonging to the ghûl, who was out hunting, and returned. When the ghûl, came home to find Ijbeyneh gone and his house looted, he burst asunder from grief and died. But when Ijbeyneh had told her story and it was known that her cousins had taken away her berries and left her alone in the wilderness, people were furious. A crier was sent through the district, crying, “Let every one who loves justice bring a fiery ember!” So a great fire was made, and the wicked little girls were burnt to ashes as they deserved. But Ijbeyneh grew up and eventually the son of the sultan saw and married her.

There once was a clever man named Uhdey-dûn who lived in a strong castle^[1] on the top of a steep rock. He was at emnity with a dreadful ghûleh, who devastated the country and lived with her three daughters in a gloomy cave in a wady near the desert. In those days fire-arms were unknown, and so Uhdey-dûn could not shoot either the ghûleh or her children, but he had a sharp hatchet and long packing needle^[2] as well as other things. The ghûleh had nothing but a copper cauldron in which she cooked the food for herself and her children. But they very often did not take the trouble to cook, but ate their food raw, and as they had no knife, they used to tear the flesh with their teeth, and break the a by hammering them with a stone.