The father had three sons: two were smart, and the third was a fool. The father sends his sons for brushwood, gives the smart one a horse, and the fool has to carry the brushwood on his back. One day, smart sons were driving with a cartload of brushwood and saw a frog sitting on the road and moaning. The frog asks to carry it across the ditch, but the smart sons did not carry it, and even beat the poor thing with a whip. Next comes the fool with a bundle of brushwood. He did what the frog asked. And she promised to help him in everything for this. So that the fool would no longer carry brushwood on his back, the frog gave him a white horse.
One day a fool with a cart of brushwood was driving past the royal palace. The youngest princess saw the fool’s horse and began to mock him:
- Such miracles! The fool got a white horse! These ridicule struck a nerve with the fool. He says:
- May the evil one take you! Everyone thinks I'm a fool!
And the unclean one was right there, he grabbed the princess, and he was the only one they saw. The king began to ask who cursed the princess. He took the gun and ordered everyone to pass in front of him: as soon as the guilty person walked past, the gun would fire. And so it happened: as soon as the fool walked past the gun, it fired. The king ordered to quit
fool into the lake. The fool found himself in the water, remembered the frog and prayed:
- Frog, frog, help me get to the shore! The frog pulled the fool ashore and asked:
-What else would you like?
“I want to go to that princess I cursed.”
One or two - and he's already there. The princess sits sadly in a dense forest and cries. The frog asks the fool again:
-What else would you like?
“Deliver the princess from the evil spirit and take us both to the shore of the lake where I drowned.” And so that a palace is built on the shore in which we will live.
The frog did this and jumped into the water. The king saw the palace and heard that the fool lived in the palace with his youngest daughter. The king was angry and sent an army to destroy the palace and return the princess home, but the frog turned all the royal soldiers into mounds. Then the queen went for her daughter, and the frog turned her into a horse. Finally, the king himself went for the princess. Only he did not take his daughter away by force, but decided to end the matter peacefully. The king asks:
- Why did my soldiers become lumps? Why did the queen turn into a horse?
- Because they wanted to take the princess by force.
- Well, can we make the bumps and the horse people again?
– It’s possible if you give me your youngest daughter as a wife.
The king promised to give his youngest daughter to a fool. Immediately the bumps became soldiers, and the horse turned into a queen again. And the fool married the princess.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru