yellow fairy tale book

Chapter 33 Hazelnut Child

Once upon a time there was a couple who had no children and prayed every day for a child, even as small as a hazelnut.Heaven at last heard their prayers, and gave them a child exactly as big as Hazel, and not even an inch high.The parents love the little guy very much and take good care of him.Their son was also quite clever, alert, and quick, and his words and deeds were very extraordinary, which surprised all the neighbors.

When Hazel was 15, he was sitting in an eggshell at the table next to his mother, who turned to him and said, "You're 15 now, and you can't do anything. What are you going to be?" "

"A messenger." Hazelnut replied.

When the mother heard it, she laughed and said, "You really can figure it out! You are a messenger? Oh, your feet are so small, you have to walk for an hour to walk the distance that ordinary people walk in one minute!"

But Hazel replied: "But I want to be a messenger! Just give me a task, and you will see that I will come back soon."

So his mother said, "Very well, go to your aunt in the next village and bring me a comb." Immediately the Hazel child jumped out of the eggshell and ran out of the yard.He found a man on horseback just going to the next village, so he crept up on the horse's tail, sat under the saddle, and began to pinch the horse's back and prick it with a pin.The horse jumped up, reared up on its hind legs, and galloped forward with all its might, even its master could not stop it.When he reached the village the Hazel-Kid stopped prodding the horse, and the poor animal was too tired to run, and walked as slowly as a snail.Hazelnut Child took the opportunity to climb down from the ponytail, ran to his aunt's house, and asked her for a comb.On his way home he met another rider who returned in exactly the same way.When he gave the comb from his aunt to his mother, she was very surprised and asked, "How did you come back so soon?"

"Ah! mother," he answered, "you see, I said I knew I was fit to be a messenger, and I was right."

My father also had a horse, which he often took to the fields to graze.One day he took Hazel Kid with him.At noon the father turned to his youngest son and said, "Stay here and watch the horses. I must go home and send a message to your mother. I will be back soon."

After the father had gone, a robber passed by and saw the horses grazing, but no one was watching, because of course he couldn't see the Hazel Boy hiding in the grass.So he mounted his horse and rode away, but the Hazel-Kid, who was a most agile elf, climbed up on the horse's tail and bit its back.Enraged, the horse galloped straight home, regardless of the direction the robber told it to run.The father was surprised to see a stranger on his horse, but the Hazel child quickly climbed down and told him what happened, so the father immediately caught the robber and sent him to prison.

In the autumn when Hazel was 21 years old, he said to his parents: "Goodbye, dear parents. I want to go out into the world, and once I become rich, I will come back to you."

The parents laughed at what the little man said, and they couldn't believe it.At night the Hazel-Child crept up to the roof where some storks had built their nests.The storks were sleeping soundly, and he climbed onto the father stork's back, tied a silk thread to the joint of one of his wings, and crawled into his soft feathers and fell asleep.

The next morning the storks flew south, for winter was coming.The hazel child was carried through the air by the stork. When he wanted to rest, he tied the silk thread to the junction of the other wing of the stork father so that it could not fly again.In this way he reached the black country, where the storks settled not far from the capital.The people were amazed when they saw the child Hazel, and brought him to the king with the father stork.The king was delighted to see the elf, and always kept him with him, and soon the king liked the little man so much that he gave him a diamond four times his size.The Hazel child tied the diamond firmly under the neck of the father stork with a ribbon, and when he saw that the other storks were getting ready to fly north, he untied the silk thread from the wings of the father stork, and they flew north, day by day. As time went on, Hazel Kid got closer and closer to home.At last the Hazel Child came home, and untied the ribbon from the neck of the father stork, and the diamond fell to the ground; and covering it with sand and stones, he ran to his parents, that they might take the jewel home, Because he couldn't move the big diamond by himself.

From then on, the hazel child and his parents lived a happy life.

(End of this chapter)