the time the dragon had been killed they were very hungry and set
up a clamour for food. The prince therefore cut up the dragon
and fed them with it, bit by bit, till they had eaten the whole.
He then washed himself and lay down to rest, and he was still
asleep when the Simurgh came home. As a rule, the young birds
raised a clamour of welcome when their parents came near, but on
this day they were so full of dragon-meat that they had no
choice, they had to go to sleep.

As they flew nearer, the old birds saw the prince lying under the
tree and no sign of life in the nest. They thought that the
misfortune which for so many earlier years had befallen them had
again happened and that their nestlings had disappeared. They
had never been able to find out the murderer, and now suspected
the prince. ' He has eaten our children and sleeps after it; he
must die,' said the father-bird, and flew back to the hills and
clawed up a huge stone which he meant to let fall on the prince's
head. But his mate said, 'Let us look into the nest first for to
kill an innocent person would condemn us at the Day of
Resurrection.' They flew nearer, and presently the young birds
woke and cried, 'Mother, what have you brought for us?' and they
told the whole story of the fight, and of how they were alive
only by the favour of the young man under the tree, and of his
cutting up the dragon and of their eating it. The mother-bird
then remarked, 'Truly, father! you were about to do a strange
thing, and a terrible sin has been averted from you.' Then the
Simurgh flew off to a distance with the great stone and dropped
it. It sank down to the very middle of the earth.

Coming back, the Simurgh saw that a little sunshine fell upon the