I’m trying to find the name of a book I read when I was a kid, what I can remember of the story is:
A group of friends set off on an adventure. Along the way they find a magic carpet or rug that when rolled out, magically produced a feast. They then came upon a cat that when stroked began to purr and pearls popped out of its mouth. The third magical item the found was a stick or switch that they didn’t know what magical purpose it had.
An unscrupulous inn-keeper saw them using the carpet and the cat and stole them. He didn’t know what the switch did either but figured it must do something. He found that, when he stole it, the magic stick beats dishonest people until they confessed their crime.
That’s all I can recall – if anyone can solve the puzzle and let me know the title and who wrote it, I would be most grateful.
This sounds as though it’s based on the Grimm fairy tale ‘The Wishing-Table, the Gold-Ass, and the Cudgel in the Sack’, though some of the details are different: e.g. the characters are brothers not friends, and there is no cat but a donkey. The dishonest innkeeper and the stick are the same in the Grimm story.