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Serbian Willies curing sickness, blindness (suppl. to Chap. 1, 8))

“While the unfortunate [recently blinded] youth was thus sitting there [under a fir-tree by a spring], all at once during the night he heard how the Vile came to the spring and bathed therein.  And he heard one say to another, “Do you know, sisters, the king’s daughter lies stricken with leprosy.  The king has called together all his physicians, but not one is able to cure her.  Of course, if anyone of them but knew it, this water here taken immediately after our visit and prepared as a bath for the princess would cure her within twenty-four hours, just as anybody dumb, blind, or lame can be healed by it!”  Then the cock began to crow, and the Vile disappeared.  The poor wretched man now dragged himself, crawling on his hands and feet, from the fir tree to the water, washed his eyes with it, and, lo! his sight was immediately restored.  Thereupon he filled the basin with this water, hastened to the king whose daughter was ill…” and cured her, receiving the princess and half the kingdom as reward.  The Vile later seized his tormenter at the spring at night “and tore him into four pieces.”

—From Serbian folk tale “The Triumph of Justice” in Maximilian Mügge, Serbian Folk Songs, Fairy Tales and Proverbs (London: Drane’s; preface dated 1916), pp. 141-4.