A long time ago lived a Padishah who had no son.

As he was taking a walk with his lala one day, they came to a well, near which they stopped to wish. A dervish suddenly appeared and cried: "All hail, my Padishah!" upon which the latter made answer: "If you know that I am the Padishah, then can you tell me the cause of my sorrow." The dervish drew an apple from his breast and said: "Your sorrow is that you have no son. Take this apple; eat half yourself and give the other half to your wife; then in due time you shall have a son. He shall belong to you till his twentieth year afterwards he is mine." With these words he vanished.