Once upon a time, Britain was ruled by a king named Herla, whose favorite pastime was hunting. For days on end he was ready to gallop after the hounds through the forests of his kingdom. Once, in the heat of the chase, he left his retinue far behind. Suddenly he looks: a red-bearded gnome rides out of the thicket on a goat.
The dwarf politely greeted the king, and the king responded in kind. "I am the king of kings," said the dwarf, "and there is no number of my subjects. I went out to meet you, for you are the ruler closest to me in power among the mighty of this world and therefore worthy of my presence honoring your wedding feast. Don't let it bother you that I know something that you yourself do not yet know. Today the ambassadors of the French king will arrive at your court and offer you the hand of his daughter. Let’s make an agreement: I will attend your wedding, and you will attend mine, which is destined to take place exactly in a year.” Without waiting for an answer, he turned around and disappeared into the darkness of the dense thickets.
When Herla returned to his castle, ambassadors from France were already waiting for him. “Our king,” they said, “will be happy if you agree to accept the hand of his daughter.” King Herla agreed, since the bride was pretty, and her father gave a considerable dowry for her. They decided not to postpone the wedding date, but to throw a feast that would make other kings jealous.
The wedding day has arrived. The young bride left her father's hearth to sit next to Herla in the luxuriously decorated hall of his castle at a crowded wedding feast. But before the first course had been served, a dwarf entered surrounded by so many servants that the huge hall immediately became crowded. In the blink of an eye, the dwarves erected tents outside so that those who did not have enough space in the castle could camp there. And, I must say, most of the guests dined outside. Dwarven servants scurried in and out of the tents, carrying cups made of crystals, rare gems and sparkling gold to the guests, without even touching silver. They turned out to be right there at the right moment, and the dishes were served from their own, and not from the kitchen of King Herla. They had all sorts of foods—even the most rare ones—and there was plenty of everything. Herla's vast stores remained untouched, and his servants were forced to sit idle, while dwarves in jeweled robes rushed like mad among the guests, eclipsing everyone inside, just as the sun and moon eclipse the stars.
When the dwarves had finished their work, their king turned to Herla: "Oh, best of kings, you see, I have come as we agreed. Wish for something that your eyes cannot see, and if it is in my power, I will gladly fulfill your wish. But remember: you must not shy away from returning gratitude when I ask for it." Having uttered these words, he, along with his entire retinue, disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared, before the rooster had time to crow.
Exactly one year later, to the day, the dwarf reappeared and demanded that Herla fulfill his part of the agreement. The king agreed, ordering his servants to prepare everything needed for a wedding feast as brilliant as his own. And the dwarf led the king and his people along unexplored paths leading away from human habitation along gray rocks, through deserted lands. Finally, they reached a cave leading deep into a sheer cliff that rose above the abyss. They entered and moved for some time in complete darkness. But light appeared ahead and soon they found themselves in a palace shining no less brightly than the sun at its zenith thanks to countless man-made lamps. Here the second wedding feast took place, with all the splendor that King Herla could afford, although it was as inferior to the previous feast as the wealth of the human ruler was inferior to that of the dwarf king. However, the dwarf was quite pleased, so Herla no longer felt indebted.
When Kherla got ready to go back, he was richly presented with horses, hounds, falcons - in a word, everything that had to do with hunting. The Dwarf King led his guests to the place where the darkness of the cave began and the border between his kingdom and the deserted space around him passed. There he gave Herla a parting gift - a hound puppy, which was to be held in his arms all the way. “Neither of you should set foot on the ground until the puppy jumps off the king’s arms,” the dwarf commanded. After which he said goodbye for the last time and went back to his country.
King Herla and his people rode out of the cave into the light of day and soon met a shepherd with his flock. He was a man of very advanced age, bent double under the burden of years. Herla asked him how the queen was doing, calling her by name, to which the old man shook his head in surprise: “Sir, I have difficulty understanding your speech, for you are a Briton, but I am a Saxon. However, I guess: you are asking about the queen, whose name is familiar to me from ancient legends. As the legend says, the queen, who was called that, was the wife of the ruler of these places, who one day disappeared into this very rock, after which no one else I didn’t see it. But it happened a long time ago, even before the arrival of the Saxons, and it’s been two hundred years since we captured these lands.”
Herla was speechless - he thought that he had only been staying with the dwarves for three days. Some of his retinue, forgetting about the dwarf’s order, jumped to the ground and immediately turned to dust. Then Herla strictly forbade the others to dismount until the puppy jumped to the ground, so that they would not suffer the same fate... The puppy never jumped off, and Herla still wanders around the world with his retinue, finding no peace.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru