"Good fortune has brought you, my dear son. What are you doing here, whither not even a bird ever comes? What do you want here, my dear son?"
"I am trying to find the pelican, my dear old mother."
"Well, my son, I do not know where it is, but I have heard of it. Go a hundred miles beyond yonder silver forest, and ask my grandmother. If she does not know anything about it, nobody does. On your way back with your bird come and see me, my dear son, and I will give you a present. Life is worth living."
The old woman sent her cat with the prince, which accompanied him as far as the right road, mewed once, and turned back. The wandering prince, after a journey which lasted for weeks, got through the silver forest and found a cottage where the old woman lived, who was so much bent from age that her nose touched the ground.
"Good fortune has brought you, my dear son. What are you doing here, whither not even a bird ever comes? What do you want, my dear son?"
"I seek the pelican, my dear mother, whose song makes old people young again. The Jesuits have stolen it from my father."
"Well, my son, I know nothing of it. But fifty miles beyond yonder copper-forest lives my mother, and if she knows nothing about your bird, then nobody does. On your way back with the bird call upon me, my dear son, and I will give you a good present for your trouble. Life is still very pleasant, even to me."
The prince again continued his journey in company with a red cock, which took him as far as the right road. There it crowed once, and flew back. After a journey of days and weeks the prince discovered on the borders of the copper-forest a little cottage, in which the old woman sat, whose eyelids were quite covered with moss. "Good day, my dear old mother!" "Good fortune has brought you, my dear son. What do you want?"
"I am looking for the pelican." "You are on the right spot, my dear son. Though I have never seen it; because when it was brought hither I could use my legs no longer. Step across the threshold, and within a gun-shot you will see an old tumble-down church; the pelican is kept in there. By the side of the church there is a beautiful mansion, in it live the two old Jesuits who brought the bird from some foreign land; but the bird will not sing to them. Go and tell them that you think you will be able to make the bird sing, as perhaps it will sing to you as you come from a foreign land."