Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/239

an excursion into the forest,^[1] where they were in the habit of going in order to pick the fruit of the “Za’rûr.”^[2] The child, having filled her square linen head-veil (“tarbì’ah”), with the berries, laid it at the foot of a tree and wandered picking flowers. When she returned to the place where she had left her head-veil, she found bad berries instead of the beauties she had gathered, and her cousins gone. She wandered hither and thither through the “hìsh,” calling to them, but received no answer: She tried to find her way home, but went further astray. At last a ghûl, out hunting, came up and would have devoured her, but, Ijbeyneh being Allah’s gift to her parents, and so protected, instead of eating her up the monster pitied her. She cried, “O my uncle! tell me which way my cousins have gone.” He answered, “I do not know, O Beloved, but come and live with me until your cousins come back and seek you.” Ijbeyneh consenting, he took her to his house on the top of a high mountain. There she became his shepherdess, and he grew very fond of her, and daily brought choice game for her to eat. For all that she was most unhappy, weeping often for her home and parents. Now the doves belonging to her parents, which she had been used to feed, missed Ijbeyneh very much, and made search for her upon their own account. One day they espied her afar off, and came to her, showing their joy by