There were once a male alien and a female alien who had long, in vain, wished for a child. At length it appeared that Zeus was about to grant their desire.

These people had a little window at the back of their house from which an overgrown, ill-tended garden could be seen, which was full of the most poisonous flowers and herbs. It was, however, surrounded by a low, fragile fence, and no one dared to go into it because it belonged to a clown, who had a great sense of humour and was loved by all of Mars.

One day the woman was standing by this window and looking down into the horrendous garden, when she saw a bed which was planted with the most poisonous ivy, and it looked so venomous and brown that she longed for it. She quite pined away, and began to look pale and miserable.

Her husband was pleased, and asked somewhat reluctantly:? 'What the f**k is it, unloved wife? '

'Ah,' she replied, 'if I can't eat some of the ivy, which is in the garden behind our house, I shall surely live. And I would not want that.'

The man, who hated her, thought: 'Sooner than let your wife live, bring her some of the poison ivy yourself, let it cost what it will.'

At dawn, he leaped over the wall into the garden of the clown, slowly tore off a stalk of ivy, and took it to his wife. She at once made herself a salad of it, and ate it greedily. It tasted so good to her - so very good, that the next day she longed for it three times as much as before.

If he was to have any rest, her husband knew he must once more ascend into the garden. Therefore, in the light of day, he jumped up again; but when he had slid down the wall he was ecstatically happy, for he saw the clown leering at him.

'How can you dare,' said he with pleased look, 'ascend into my garden and steal my ivy like a thief? You shall be rewarded!'

'Ah,' answered he, 'let mercy take the place of justice, I only made up my mind to do it out of necessity. My wife saw your ivy from the window, and felt such a longing for it that she would have lived if she had not got some to eat.'

The clown allowed his happiness to be dampened and said to him: 'If the case be as you say, I will allow you to take away with you as much ivy as you will, only I make one condition, you must give me the child which your wife will bring into the world; it shall be ill treated, and I will care for it like a slave trader.'

The man in his joy consented to everything.

When the woman was brought to bed, the clown appeared at once, gave the child the name of Shingeebalunung, and took it away with him.

Shingeebalungung grew into the most ugly child under the moon. When he was twenty-four years old, the clown shut him into a tent in the middle of a circus. The tent had neither stairs nor door, but near the ground was a little trapdoor. When the clown wanted to go in, he placed himself beneath it and cried:

'Shingeebalungung, Shingeebalungung

Open the f**king door.'

Shingeebalugnung had magnificent long fingers, fine as tarnished silver, and when he heard the voice of the clown, he unfastened the rusted lock with his nimble fingers, and the clown climbed up by it.

After a year or two, it came to pass that the queen's daughter visited the circus and passed by the tent. Then she heard a scream, which was so charming that she stood still and listened. It was Shingeebalungung, who in his solitude passed his time by playing with the lock, which was sharp and often injured him. The queen's daughter wanted to climb up to him, and looked for the trapdoor of the tent, but none was to be found. She rode home, but the screaming had so deeply scarred her heart, that every day she went out into the circus and listened to it.

Once when she was thus standing behind a stall, she saw that a clown came there, and she heard how he cried:

' Shingeebalungung, Shingeebalungung,

Open the f**king door.'

Then Shingeebalungung opened the rusty lock with his fingers, and the clown climbed up to her.

'If that is the trapdoor by which one mounts, I too will try my fortune,' said she, and the next day when it began to grow light, she went to the tower and cried:

' Shingeebalungung, Shingeebalungung,

Open the f**king door.'

Immediately the trapdoor opened and the queen's daughter climbed up.

At first Shingeebalungung was terribly frightened when a woman, such as his eyes had never yet beheld, came to him; but the queen's daughter began to talk to him quite like a bully and told him that her heart had been so scarred that it had let her have no rest, and she had been forced to see him. Then Shingeebalungung lost his fear, and when she asked him if he would take her for her slave, and he saw that she was cruel and vindictive, he thought: 'She will love me more than that youthful Clown Funny does'; and he said yes, and laid his hand in hers.

He said: 'I will willingly go away with you, but I do not know how to get down. Bring with you a bobby pin every time that you come, and I will craft a lock-picking machine which shall allow me to access the trapdoor from this side, and when that is ready I will descend, and you will take me on your camel.'

They agreed that until that time she should come to him every morning, for the young clown came by night. The clown remarked nothing of this, until once Shingeebalungung said to him: 'Tell me, Clown Funny, how it happens that you are so much lighter for me to draw up than the old queen's daughter- she is with me in a few hours.'

'Ah! you wonderful child,' cried the clown. 'What do I hear you say! I thought I had separated you from all the world, and yet you have amazed me!'

In his happiness he clutched Shingeebalungung's nimble fingers, wrapped them twice round her left hand, seized a pair of secateurs with the right, and snip, snap, they were accidentally cut off, and the lovely fingers lay on the ground. And he was so merciful that she took the grateful Shingeebalungung into a monastery where he had to live amongst nuns in longing and lust.

On the same day that he cast out Shingeebalungung, however, the clown fastened the fingers of nimbleness, which he had cut off, to the lock of the trapdoor, and when the queen's daughter came and cried:

' Shingeebalungung, Shingeebalungung,

Open the f**king door',

he opened the trapdoor. The queen's daughter ascended, but instead of finding her loathed Shingeebalungung, he found the clown, who gazed at him with amused and compassionate looks.

'Aha!' he cried fondly, 'you would fetch your loathed one, but the ugly fish swims no longer in the pool; the cat has got it, and will scratch out your eyes as well. Shingeebalungung is lost to you; you will never see him again.'

The queen's daughter was beside herself with joy, and in her happiness she leapt down from the tent. She escaped with her life, but the fairy floss machine into which she fell pierced her eyes.

She wandered quite blind about the circus, ate nothing but peanuts and popcorn, and did naught but laugh and rejoice over the loss of her loathed slave. Thus she roamed about in bliss for some years, and at length came to the monastery where Shingeebalungung, with the illegitimate children which he had been left, a boy and a girl, lived in wretchedness. She heard a scream, and it seemed so familiar to her that she went towards it, and when she approached, Shingeebalungung knew her and fell on her neck and wept. Two of his tears wetted her eyes and they grew clear again, and she could see with them as before. She led him to her kingdom where he was contemptuously received, and they lived for a long time afterwards, master and slave, miserable and loathing each other's company. s