blue fairy tale book

Chapter 23 Water Lilies
Once upon a time there lived an old woman and three girls in a great forest.All three girls were beautiful, but the youngest was the prettiest.Their huts were hidden by dense woods, so that no one saw their beauty except the sun by day, and the moon and winking stars at night.The old woman always made the three girls work hard, spinning golden flax into yarn from morning to night, and spinning one stalk and another, so they were a little bit tired. No rest.The thread must be spun finely and evenly. After spinning, the old woman locked the thread in a secret room, and she herself had to travel two or three times every summer.She gave them their daily chores before she went out, and she always came home at night so the girls would never see what she brought home.She told them neither where she got the golden flax, nor what use it was for the spun yarn.

Now, it's time for the old woman to go out. She gave each girl a six-day job, and warned them as usual: "Children, don't look around, and don't talk to men for no reason. Otherwise, the thread you spin will lose its luster, and all kinds of disasters will follow." The old woman's repeated warning made them laugh, and they said to each other:

"How can our gold thread tarnish? Have we had a chance to speak to men?"

On the third day after the old woman's departure, a young prince went hunting in the forest, and got separated from his attendants, and was utterly lost.The prince looked for his way, and when he felt tired, he let his horse go to graze, and fell asleep under a tree.

When he awoke, the sun had set, and he began to look for the way out of the forest again.At last he found a narrow path, which he followed eagerly, and found that it led to a hut.The girls, who were sitting at the door to cool off, saw him approaching, and the two sisters were alarmed, for they thought of the old woman's warning; but the youngest girl said, "I never saw anyone like him." Let me take a look." The sisters begged her to hurry into the house, but seeing her unwillingness, they left her there.The prince came up and said hello to the girl politely, saying that he was lost in the forest, hungry and tired.So she brought him his food, and talked to him very cheerfully, forgetting all of the old woman's warnings.

They talked for hours.Meanwhile, the prince's attendants looked for him everywhere, but in vain, so two messengers had to be sent to report the unfortunate news to the king.The king immediately sent a regiment of cavalry and a regiment of infantry into the forest to search for the prince.

They searched for three days and finally found the hut.The Prince was sitting by the door, so happy in the company of the girl, that it seemed as if an hour had passed.When he was about to leave, the prince promised to come back and take her to his father's palace and make her his bride.As soon as the Prince was gone, she sat down at the spinning wheel and hurried to work to make up for lost time, but she was horrified to find that the spun thread had lost all luster.Thinking of the old woman's warning, she didn't know what disaster would happen to her, her heart was beating violently, and she cried bitterly for it.

When the old woman came back in the evening, she saw the dull yarn and knew what had happened in the house while she was away.She was very angry, and told the girl that she had brought misfortune upon herself and the prince.

The little girl could not sleep at the thought of it, and at last she could stand it no longer, and decided to ask the prince for help.

She had learned bird language when she was a child, and now her stunt has come in handy.She saw a big crow preening its feathers on a pine branch, and she called softly, "Dear bird, the smartest bird, the fastest bird, help me?" How can I help you?" asked the big crow.She replied, "Fly straight ahead to a prosperous city where there is a palace. Find the prince in the palace and tell him that a great disaster has befallen me." Then she told everyone How the crow lost its luster on her thread, how the old woman lost her temper, and how she was afraid of doom.The big crow sincerely promised to do what she asked, and spread his wings and flew away.Now the girl came home and worked hard all day, winding the yarn her two sisters had spun into bobbins, for the old woman would let her spin no more.In the evening, she heard the crow in the pine tree calling "Whoa, whoa" to the house, and hurried to hear the news it brought back.

Fortunately, the big crow found the son of a wind wizard in the garden of the palace. He knew the bird language, so he asked him to deliver the message to the prince.The prince was very sad when he heard the news, and he discussed with his friends how to save the girl.Finally, he said to the son of the wind wizard: "Please fly back to the girl quickly, and tell her to get ready on the ninth night, when I will take her away." The son of the wind wizard did so, and the crow Flying quickly, I returned to the hut that evening.The girl thanked the big crow sincerely, and then Selan returned home and told no one what she had heard.

As the night of the ninth day drew near, the girl became very disturbed, and dreaded that some terrible calamity would come and ruin everything.In the evening, she quietly went out of the house, and waited tremblingly not far from the hut for the prince to come and pick her up.Presently she heard the muffled clatter of hooves, and a heavily armed army led by the prince appeared before her.The prince had carefully marked all the trees as he entered the forest, so that he might find his way back.

When he saw the girl, he jumped off his horse, put her in the saddle, and sat behind her, and they galloped back together.The moonlight was very bright, so it was not difficult for them to see the marked trees.

Next morning the old woman found that the youngest girl was not at work, and asked her where she had been.The two sisters pretended not to know, but the old woman easily guessed what happened, and since she was really a wicked witch, she decided to punish the two desperadoes.So she collected nine different nightshades used by wizards, added some salt that had been enchanted before, wrapped it in a piece of cloth to make a pompom, let it chase them as fast as possible, and said: road:
"Whirlwind!—mother of the winds!

Please help me punish criminal gangsters!
Take this magic ball with you.

Let her leave his arms forever, and bury her in the gurgling river. "

At noon the prince and his attendants came to the bank of a deep river, over which was crossed a bridge so narrow that only one rider could pass at a time.Just when the horse with the prince and the girl came to the middle of the bridge, the magic ball flew.The frightened horse reared up, and before the attendants could hold the horse, the girl was thrown into the rushing river.The prince tried to jump down to save her, but was pulled back by his attendants, who, despite his struggling, carried him home.When he got home, the prince shut himself up in a secret room and did not eat or drink for six weeks. He was in so much pain.At last he was so ill that he almost died, and the king was so alarmed that he summoned all the wizards in the country.But no one could cure the prince's illness.At last the wind wizard's son said to the king, "Send to Finland and fetch the old wizard, who knows more than all the wizards in your kingdom."

A messenger was immediately sent to Finland, and a week later the old wizard came in haste himself.

"My lord king," said the wizard, "the wind has brought sickness to your son, and a magic ball has taken his beloved. This is what has caused him so much sorrow for so long. Let him go out and blow the wind, and the wind may blow it away." The sorrow of his heart." So the king sent the prince to the place where the wind blows, and the prince gradually recovered, and told his father everything. "Forget about the girl," said the King, "and find another bride." But the Prince said he would never love anyone else.

A year later, he came to the bridge where his beloved died.Recalling that misfortune, he cried again—if he could get her life back, he would rather give up everything he had.When he was sad, he vaguely heard a voice singing, so he looked around, but there was no one around.Then he heard the song again, and in the song:
"Ah! Bewitched and cast out, I must lie down here forever!
It never occurred to the Beloved to come and save his lovely bride. "

The Prince was greatly astonished, and jumped down from his horse, and looked every where to see if anyone was hiding under the bridge, but there was no one there.Then he noticed a yellow water lily floating on the water, half hidden by its broad leaves, but the flower didn't sing.He waited in wonder, hoping to hear the song again.Then the voice sang again:

"Ah! Bewitched and cast out, I must lie down here forever!
It never occurred to the Beloved to come and save his lovely bride. "

The prince suddenly thought of those golden spinning machines, and thought to himself: "If I ride to the other side, perhaps someone who knows will explain all this to me." At once he rode to the hut in the forest, and saw him by the spring. The girl's two older sisters.He told them what had happened to their sister a year before, and how he had twice heard strange singing and could not see the singer.They said that the yellow water lily was their sister, she was not dead, but was turned into a water lily by the magic ball.Before the prince went to bed, the eldest sister made him a magic grass cake to eat.At night he dreamed that he lived in this forest and could understand all the birds talking.Next morning he told this to the two girls, who said it was all from the magic cake, and advised him to listen to the birds and hear what they had to say.After the sisters begged him to restore the bride to normal, he must come back and rescue them from the sea of ​​misery.

The prince granted their request, and returned home happy, and as he rode through the forest he understood exactly what the birds were saying.He heard a thrush say to a magpie: "How stupid people are! They don't understand the simplest things. It's been a whole year now since the girl was turned into a water lily, and though she sang so Sad, anyone who passed the bridge could hear her singing, but no one came to help her. A few days ago, her former groom rode across the bridge and heard her singing, but he was no more than Others are smart."

Magpie added: "If he only pays attention to human language, then she will always be a flower. Only the old Finnish wizard can save her at once."

Hearing this, the prince wondered how to get the letter to Finland.He heard one swallow say to another, "Hey, let's fly to Finland, where we can build a better nest."

"Wait, good friends!" cried the Prince, "can you do me a favor?" The Swallow agreed, and he said, "Bring me a thousand greetings to that Finnish wizard, and then ask him How can we restore a girl who has been turned into a flower back to her original form."

The swallow flew away, and the prince rode on to the bridge.There he waited, hoping to hear singing again.But he heard nothing but the murmur of the running water and the murmur of the wind, and went back disappointed.

Not long afterward, as he was sitting in the garden, thinking that the two swallows must have forgotten to bring him news, suddenly he saw an eagle circling overhead.The eagle gradually lowered its height, and at last perched on a tree not far from the prince, and said, "The Finnish wizard greets you and tells me to tell you that you can rescue the girl in this way: go to the river and wipe your whole body. Get on the mud and say 'turn a man into a crab' and you will be a crab. Then bravely jump into the river and try to swim to the root of that water lily and pull it out of the mud and reeds .Then hold it firmly by the base with your paws, and hold it out of the water. Let the water wash the flower, and float with it with the current to the left bank of the river where the mountain ash tree grows. There is a big rock near it. ...you stop there and say 'turn the crab into a man and the water lily into a girl' and you two will be back to your old self."

The prince was full of doubts and fears, and it took him a while to gather up his courage to save the girl.Then a crow said to him, "Why are you hesitating? What the old wizard told you was not wrong, and those birds did not lie to you. Go and dry the girl's tears."

"There is nothing worse than letting me die," thought the prince, "but it would be better to be dead than to be sad forever." So he rode to the bridge.He heard the lament of the water lily again, and without further hesitation, he smeared himself all over with mud, said, "Turn a man into a crab," and jumped into the water.Immediately the water hissed in his ears, and then all was still.He swam to the water lily and began to pull out its roots, but the roots were firmly lodged in the mud and reeds, and it took him a long time to pull them out.Then he held the roots tightly and rose to the surface of the water, letting the water wash over the flowers.The current carried them down the river, but he didn't see the ash tree.At last he found it and the big rock beside it.There he stopped and said, "Turn the crab into a man, and the water lily into a girl." He was delighted to find that he had become a prince again, and that the girl was standing beside him.She was ten times more beautiful than ever in a gorgeous gown of pale yellow, bejeweled.She thanked him for freeing herself from the spell of the cruel witch and offered to marry her.

But when they got back to the place on the bridge where he had left the horse, the horse was gone, because although the prince thought he had been transformed into a crab for only a few hours, in fact he had been in the water for more than ten days .They had somehow come back to his father's court, when they saw a magnificent carriage drawn by six horses in splendid attire, driving along the bank of the river.So they drove back to the palace in a chariot.The king and queen were at church, weeping for their son--they had mourned his death for days.They were both delighted and surprised when the prince went in with the girl on his arm.The wedding took place at once, and there were six weeks of feasting and celebration throughout the kingdom.

One day not long after, the prince and his bride were sitting in the garden, when a crow said to them, "You ungrateful ones! Have you forgotten the two poor girls who helped you in your time of distress? Shall they spin golden flax all their lives? Do not pity the old hag. The three girls were princesses, and she stole them all when they were little, and at the same time she stole all the silver, and into golden flax.

Poison is the best punishment for her. "

The Prince was ashamed that he had forgotten that promise, and set out at once, and was very fortunate that the old woman was not at the cottage when he came to it.The girls had dreamed that he was coming, and they were getting ready to go with him, but before they went they made a cake, put poison in it, and put it on a table, so that when the old woman came back You can see it at a glance.When the old woman came back, she really saw the cake, thought it was too tempting, and immediately ate it greedily, and was immediately poisoned to death.

In that chamber they found fifty chariots of golden flax, and an equal amount buried.The hut was razed to the ground, and the prince, the bride, and her two sisters lived happily ever after.

(End of this chapter)