But when they saw
him coming they ran away from him in fear. He went to the well and
looked in. Lo, his face was as the face of a toad and his body was
scaled like an adder. He flung himself down on the grass, and wept.
"I denied my mother," he said. "This has come upon me because of my
sin. I will seek her through all the world, nor rest until I have
found her."
So he ran away into the forest and called out to his mother to come to
him, but there was no answer. All day long he called to her, and when
the sun set he lay down to sleep on a bed of leaves, and the birds and
the animals fled from him, for they remembered his cruelty, and he was
alone save for the toad that watched him, and the slow adder that
crawled past.
And in the morning he rose up and plucked some bitter berries from the
trees and ate them, and took his way through the great wood, weeping
sorely. And of everything that he met he made inquiry if perchance
they had seen his mother.
He said to the Mole, "Thou canst go beneath the earth. Tell me, is my
mother there?"
And the Mole answered, "Thou hast blinded mine eyes. How should I
know?"
He said to the Linnet, "Thou canst fly over the tops of the tall trees
and canst see the whole world. Tell me, canst thou see my mother?"
And the Linnet answered, "Thou hast clipt my wings for thy pleasure.
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