A soldier was coming home from service. He walks along the road and sees a big fish lying there, unable to reach the water. The soldier took a stick and pushed the fish into the water. The fish tells him:
- If you go with goodness, you will find goodness.
The soldier thought: “What can you do for me?” - and moved on.
He sees the bird sitting, unable to fly, beating so hard that its entire beak is covered in blood.
The soldier picked her up and carried her to the tavern. I asked for oil there and oiled the bird's feathers. He let her in, and she said to him:
- If you go with goodness, you will find goodness.
And the soldier thought: “How can you help me?” - and moved on. I came to the meadow, and there rosemary was growing in the nettles. The soldier dug it up, carried it into the city and planted it in the garden under a peach tree. Rosemary tells him:
- If you go with goodness, you will find goodness.
The soldier thought: “How can you help me?” - and moved on. Comes to another city. And in that city, the queen promised to give her kingdom to the one who would hide so well that she would not find him. OK. The soldier said that he would be able to hide. The queen tells him:
- Look, if I find you three times, you will end.
The soldier went to the sea and walked and wandered along the shore all day. The appointed time is coming - the queen will now look for him, and then the soldier remembered the fish that he had put into the water. A fish swam up, opened its mouth and said:
- Get into my mouth.
But the queen looked through the telescope and found the soldier. Then he said: “I’ll go to the bird, maybe she will help me out.” The bird carried him into the sky to other birds, but the queen looked through the telescope, found him and said:
“You’re in the sky, among the birds, get down.”
Then the soldier remembered that rosemary had told him: “You go with goodness, you will find goodness.” He went to the rosemary. He says to him: “Pluck a twig from me and take it to the queen in the palace, you will become a leaf and hide behind her ear. She won’t find you there.”
And so it happened. The queen searched and searched for him, but could not find him. And a rosemary leaf fell from behind the queen's ear and turned into a man. So the soldier received the kingdom.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru