The forty thieves carried bags of treasure, and hid it in a cave, which opened for them in the solid rock on saying the words, ‘Open, Sesame.’
This is why, if you find a child crying and ask the cause, you will often be told he is ‘crying for nothing.’
The lassie set out on her way, and walked many, many days, till she came to a lofty rock. Under it sat an old hag, and played with a gold apple which she tossed about.
One day, as Margery was coming home from the next village, she met with some wicked, idle boys, who had tied a young raven to a staff. She offered at once to buy the raven for a penny, and this they agreed to.
Sindbad’s life is full of peril, full of shipwrecks, full of famine; full of riches of great worth, full of every thing but truth.
‘Child,’ says the mother, ‘do you know you are as pretty as a princess?’ ‘Am I that?’ says the maid, and goes on with her crying.
‘Far away,’ continued the statue, ‘far away in a little street there is a poor house. In a bed in the corner of the room a little boy is lying ill.’
Poor Dick ran off as fast as his legs could carry him; he walked about the streets till it grew dark, and finding nothing but dirt instead of gold, he sat down in a corner, and cried himself to sleep.
‘Ah!’ said the Hare; ‘the king of England has the finest orchard in the whole land, but it does not bear so much as a crab, for there lies a heavy gold chain in three turns round the orchard. If he got that dug up, there would not be a garden like it for bearing in all his kingdom.’
When the rich brother saw all that was on the table, and all that was behind in the larder, he grew quite spiteful and wild, for he couldn’t bear that his brother should have anything.
‘I once heard the old people say that behind the village, near the dark forest, there is buried a treasure, yes, a great treasure, but it is buried under a large, heavy stone, too heavy a stone for one man to move.’