And so, after leaving the leprous man behind, Don Juan walks on until he reaches the Piedras Platas, that shiny tree the princes encountered from the first two attempts. At first, it also lures him in, making him forget about what the man said, but he soon remembers and snaps out of the trance. (Apparently, it really is "charming", hence what happened to Don Diego last time.)
Following the leprous man's instructions, he looks downward from where he was and sees a house. He goes there and is greeted by a hermit.
They go inside the house and the hermit serves some food, which they go and eat. Don Juan, however, wonders why the piece of bread he gave the leprous man was here. He knew he gave it to the man, and now it was with the hermit... He concludes, at least to himself, that this hermit is just like Jesus! (not quite sure what they meant here, to be honest, but it could be because he had some sort of either ability to make miracles or a general supernatural ability...)
After they ate, the hermit tells the prince to tell him why he was there. Don Juan answers that he needs to get the Adarna bird to cure his father, the king.
Like with the leprous man before, the hermit says that Don Juan will have a hard time with the task, since the bird is enchanted. But, determined as he is, the prince says that it doesn't matter if he dies in the process, he needs to know where he should go.
As a way to test Don Juan's resolve, the hermit agrees to help him. He says that the shiny tree is indeed the home of the bird, and that it comes home in the middle of the night. It then sings seven songs, with its beautiful appearance changing each time.
The songs will lull anyone (and pretty much anything) to sleep, so the hermit gives Don Juan seven key limes and a navaja knife. The prince should wound himself each time the bird sings, and he should squeeze the juice on his wound so that he wouldn't sleep.
The hermit then says that after those seven songs, the bird will then poop, and so Don Juan should avoid it so he won't end up turning into stone. He gives the prince a golden rope which the man should use to tie the bird up once captured.
After this, the hermit sends Don Juan on his way to capture the bird, as it is night time already and it's almost time for the Adarna bird to arrive.
We're almost at the part that a lot of people know, and that is how Don Juan captures the Adarna bird. After that, I don't know what happens anymore, so yes, I am going to go in blind at that point.
Before reading this, and before doing a bit of searching for translations, I didn't know that the local citrus fruit, dayap, was actually what people referred to as key lime! That was something new to me. Not gonna lie, I've always wanted to try key lime pie.
I'm actually excited to read more of this, and I'm kind of sad that I missed out on this before.