came and snuffed at them with simple and marveling curiosity. The king
petted him, and he knelt down as had been his wont when his little
mistress desired to mount. With great labor and pain the lad drew
himself upon the creature's back, and held himself there by aid of the
generous ears. The ass went singing forth from the place and carried the
king to the little peasant-maid's hut. She gave him her pallet for a
bed, refreshed him with goat's milk, and then flew to tell the great news
to the first scouting-party of searchers she might meet.

The king got well. His first act was to proclaim the sacredness and
inviolability of the ass; his second was to add this particular ass to
his cabinet and make him chief minister of the crown; his third was to
have all the statues and effigies of nightingales throughout his kingdom
destroyed, and replaced by statues and effigies of the sacred donkey;
and, his fourth was to announce that when the little peasant maid should
reach her fifteenth year he would make her his queen and he kept his
word.

Such is the legend. This explains why the moldering image of the ass
adorns all these old crumbling walls and arches; and it explains why,
during many centuries, an ass was always the chief minister in that royal
cabinet, just as is still the case in most cabinets to this day; and it
also explains why, in that little kingdom, during many centuries, all
great poems, all great speeches, all great books, all public solemnities,
and all royal proclamations, always began with these stirring words:

"Waw . . . he! waw . . . he!--waw he! Waw-he!"