FAIRY TALES (text) - 70. THE POOR BOY AND THE KING’S DAUGHTER

THE POOR BOY AND THE KING’S DAUGHTER

Once upon a time there was an old man, who had taken a boy to be raised because he had neither mother nor father. When the boy grew up and became sixteen years old, he said to the old lady:

    Don’t nanny, I grew up and am a man and I have to go in exile to try my luck. You don’t have to take care for me, because it is shameful.

So the boy left his hometown and went to the nearest town.

But night fell and instead of taking the right path he took the wrong one and in front of him appeared a dragon. 

    You are in the wrong path taken boy, – says the dragon. – But if you do something for me I will tell which the right one is.

  – Yes – replies the boy.

The dragon opened his mouth and says to the boy:

    I want to eat a dead horse but a bird and a fly won’t let me. The bird bites me and the fly stings me. If you separate this horse for us without making us fight, I will show you the right path.

    Yes! – Says the boy again.

And they went to where the horse was, which the boy divided into three parts; he gave the dragon the bones, the flesh to the fly and the gut to the bird. Then the bird said the dragon.

    How about we make something good for this boy? Let’s give him a feather and when he blows it, he becomes a dragon, a fly or a bird, whenever he wants.

The boy took the pen and went to the city where King stood.

There he began working as a servant of a shop.

One day the king’s daughter would be going out for a walk in the city and the king gave orders so that no one went out on the roads or he would cut his head off.

Shopkeeper became afraid and ordered the boy to stay in that store to not suffer anything.

And indeed the king’s daughter went outside on the cart and the boy from the great curiosity that he had, blew the feather three times and he became a bird. He went on a tree and began chanting so beautiful that he drove crazy the daughter of the king. Then he flew over her head, and no matter how she tried to grab him, the bird left very quickly.

Once she returned home, the girl says to the king:

    Dad, I saw a bird so beautiful that I don’t know what to say. I want them to catch it.

King put thousands of fowl hunters, but none could take him.

Then the girl went for a walk again in the city to see the bird. Girls went out, the bird sat on her lap, she took him to the palace, where she put the bird in a golden cage in her room and the bird sang every day.

The girl got up from her sleep and was surprised when she saw all the food eaten. She was angry and called all her servants, but they knew nothing. Then the girl went to ask an old woman, which says:

 – If you want to find the man who eats the food, cut the little finger and put some pepper on it, the wound will burn and he will stay all night without sleep.

The girl did as the old woman said, and the third night she saw the boy. The girl caught him and said:

Who are you to eat my dishes? Do you know that my father disappears you?

The boy heard quietly and said: Your father could not do a thing that I am stronger than him. I am the bird that you wanted so much, and if you want I can be a dragon. And he really did that and also shook the whole palace. Then he fled to other cities.

The time came and the king would war with another army, but the girl remembered the young man who became a dragon so she went to her father and told him that if he wanted to win the war he had to call the boy she had in the cage.

That was what the king did. So the boy asked him just for nine other men, lame or blind. He turned into a dragon and killed everyone. He fell in the sea and the Sea’s Mother ate him. The king’s daughter heard the boy calling and immediately gave orders to bring carts full of apples with the Mother of the Sea. The Mother of the Sea came and the boy escaped.

Before long, and son married the daughter of the king and took his mother was raised him to live in the palace as a lady. They had a great wedding where they invited me and gave me good things and we had a lot of fun.