Once upon a time there was a very poor fisherman, who lived in a little hut on the banks of a river. This river, although deep, was calm and clear, and, gliding from the sun and noise, would hide itself among the trees, reeds, and brambles, in order to listen to the birds who delighted it with their songs.  
One day when the fisherman went out in his boat to cast his nets, he saw a casket of crystal slowly drifting along with the stream. He rowed toward it, but what was his horror at seeing two little babies, apparently twins, lying in it upon a bundle of cotton! The poor fisherman pitied them, took them out, and carried them home to his wife.
 
"What have you got there?" she exclaimed, as he presented them to her. "We have eight children already, and as if that were not enough, you must bring me some more!"
 
"Wife," replied the poor fisherman, "what could I do? I found these dear little creatures floating on the river below, and they would have died of hunger, or have been drowned, if I had not rescued them. Heaven, which has sent us these two more children, will assist us to provide for them."
 
And so it proved; and the little ones, a boy and a girl, grew up healthy and robust, together with the eight other children. They were both so good, so docile, and so peaceable, that the fisherman and his wife loved them exceedingly, and always held them up as examples to the other children; but they, envious and enraged, did them a thousand injustices and injuries. To escape from these cruelties, the twins would take refuge together among the thickets and on the river's banks; there they would divert themselves with the birds, and carry
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crumbs of bread to them; and the birds, grateful to them for their kindness, would fly to meet them, and teach them the bird-language. The children learned to converse with the birds very quickly, and thus they could amuse themselves with their feathered friends, who also taught them many other very good and useful things, one of them being how to get up early in the morning, and another, how to sing. One day when the fisherman's children were more annoying than they had ever been before, they said to the twins:
 
"We are the true-born children of Christians, but you, with all your neatness and superiority, are but castaways, without any other father or mother than the river, and belong to the toads and frogs!"
 
Upon receiving this insult the poor brother and sister were so filled with shame and distress that they determined to go right away from home and travel in search of their real parents At the early dawn next day they got up and went forth without any one knowing it, and began their journey, travelling they knew not whither.
 
Half the day passed by, and they had not perceived as yet any abode, nor seen a single living being. They were hungry, thirsty, and tired, when on turning round a hillside, they discovered a little house and, on reaching it, they found it empty and its inhabitants absent.
 
Thoroughly disheartened, they seated themselves on a bench in the doorway to rest. After a little while they noticed a number of swallows collected together under the eaves of the roof, and as these birds are such chatter-boxes, they began to prattle with one another. Having learned the language of birds, the children knew what the swallows said.
 
"Holloa! my lady friend," said one of the birds, who had a somewhat rustic air about it, to another that was of a very elegant and distinguished mien, "my eyes are glad to see you once more! I thought you had forgotten your country friends. How do you live in the palace?"
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"I possess the nest of my ancestors," replied the other, "and as yet they have not disinherited me, although, like yours, it is a century old. But tell me before all," continued she with admirable finesse, "how you and all your family are."
 
"Well, thank heaven, for although I have had my little Mariguita laid up with an inflammation of the eyes that was within an ace of leaving her blind, when I obtained our old remedy, the pito-real, it cured her as if by magic."
 
"But what news have you to relate to me, friend Beatrice? Does the nightingale still sing well? Does the lark soar as high as of yore? Does the linnet still prune itself?"
 
"Sister," responded the swallow, "I have nothing but downright scandals to tell you of. Our flock, which formerly was so innocent and temperate, is utterly lost, and has quite taken to the manners of mankind. It is heartbreaking!"
 
"What! Simple customs and innocence not to be found in the country, nor among birds? My dear friend, what do you tell me?"
 
"The pure truth and nothing more. Just figure to yourself that on our arrival here, whom should we meet but those chattering linnets, who went off in search of cold and storm when the spring came with long days and bright flowers! We tried to dissuade the crazy creatures, but they answered us with the utmost insolence."
 
"What did they say?"
 
"They said to us—
'Whither do we go? Whence come you, gossips, Who travel so little And talk so much?'
 
This was their reply to us, and on hearing it, we made them march to double-quick time."
 
"What do I hear!" exclaimed the interlocutor. "That any one has dared to accuse us, the most truthful and discreet of birds, of being gossips?"
 
"Then what will you think when I tell you," said the first
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speaker, "that the lark, who was so timid and ladylike, has become an insolent pilferer, and that—
The lady lark upon her flight Pilfers pulse and pilfers maize Before the very sower's sight, And at his anger pertly says, 'Sower, sower, more seed sow, As that sown can never grow'?"
 
"I am astounded!"
 
"That is only half my story. When we arrived here, and I wished to enter my nest, I found a shameless sparrow making himself quite at home in it. 'This nest is mine,' I said to him. 'Yours?' he answered rudely, and began to laugh. 'Mine and mine only.' 'Property is robbery,' piped he quite coolly. 'Sir, are you crazy?' I said to him. 'My ancestors built this nest, my parents educated me in it, and in it I mean to bring up my children.' Then at seeing me fainting, all my companions began to weep. By the time I recovered my consciousness; our husbands had put an end to the thieving rascal. But you, sister, never see such scandals in the palace."
 
"Don't we! Ah, if you only knew!"
 
"Do tell us! do tell us!" exclaimed all the swallows with one voice. When silence had been re-established, thanks to a loud and prolonged hus-s-s-sh, uttered by an elder, the court dame began her story in these terms.
 
"You must know that the king fell in love with the youngest daughter of a tailor who lived near the palace, and married her; the girl deserved his love, for she was as good as she was beautiful, and as modest as she was discreet. It so happened that the king had to go to the wars and leave his poor wife in the saddest and most perplexed position, for his ministers and courtiers who were very indignant at having a tailor's daughter for their queen, conspired to ruin her. And they availed themselves of the first opportunity. During the king's absence beautiful twins were born, a boy and a girl; but the wicked conspirators sent to tell him that the queen had for children a cat and a serpent.
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"When the king received this intelligence, he was furious and sent off a royal mandate that the queen should be entombed alive, and the children cast into the river. This was done: the beautiful queen was shut up in a stone vault, and her little darling twins were placed in a crystal coffer, and left to the mercy of the stream."
 
When they heard the fate of the poor queen and her innocent babes, the swallows, who are very kind and affectionate, began to lament most heartily, whilst the twins looked at each other in amazement, suspecting it to be very probable that they themselves were the castaway children.
 
The city swallow continued her narrative:
 
"But now hear how God frustrated the plots of these traitors. The queen was entombed; but her attendant, who was very devoted to her, contrived to make a hole in the wall, and supplied her with food through it, as we do to our little ones through our nests, and thus the lady lives, although a life of misery. Her children were rescued by a good fisherman, who has brought them up, so a friend of mine, Martin Fisher, who lives on the banks of the river, has informed me."
 
The twins, who had heard the whole story, were delighted that they had learned the language of birds; which indeed, is a proof that we should never neglect any opportunity of learning for, when least we think it, what we have learned may prove of great utility to us.
 
"So then," said the swallows joyfully, "when these children are older, they will be able to regain their place at their father's side, and liberate their mother."
 
"That is not so easy," said the narrator, "because they will not be able to prove their identity, nor prove their mother's innocence, nor the malice of the Ministry. There is only one method by which they would be able to undeceive the king."
 
"And what is that? What is that?" cried all the swallows together. "And how do you know it?"
 
"I know it," responded the narrator, "because one day when I was passing by the palace garden, I met and had a chat with a cuckoo, who, as you know, is a conjuror, and can foretell what
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will happen. As we were discoursing with each other on the affairs of the palace, he said to me—"
 
The children and the swallows were listening now with redoubled attention, and even the young swallows were thrusting their little bald heads so far out of their nests, that they were in great peril of falling.
 
"'The only one who is able to persuade the king,' said the cuckoo to me, 'is the Bird of Truth, who speaks the language of men, although they for the most part do not know truth, and do not wish to understand it.' 'And this bird, where is it?' I asked the cuckoo. 'This bird,' he answered, 'is in the castle of Go and Return Not; the castle is guarded by a ferocious giant who only sleeps one quarter of an hour in the day. If when he wakes up any one should be within reach of his tremendous arm, he seizes and swallows him as we should a mosquito.'"
 
"And where is this castle?" inquired the inquisitive Beatrice.
 
"That is what I do not know," responded her friend; "all that I know about it is, that not far from it is a tower in which dwells a wicked witch, who knows the way and will point it out to any one who will bring her from the fountain that flows there, the Water of Many Colours, which water she makes use of in her enchantments. But I should also tell you that she would like to destroy the Bird of Truth, though as no one is able to kill this bird, what she and her friend, the giant, do is to keep it a prisoner guarded by the Birds of Falsehood who will not let it speak a single word."
 
"Then will nobody be able to inform the poor queen's son where they ............