King Troyan was a handsome king, only he had goat ears. He didn’t want people to know about his ugliness, so he always wore a big hat: he hid his ears under it. The barbers who came to shave him did not return: the barber would remove the hair from the king’s head, and the king would remove his head from his shoulders, so that people would not find out about the goat’s ears.
And finally the turn came for the only son of one poor woman - they called him to shave the king. The king's boyfriend shaved, and he asked him:
- Do you have brothers?
“No, sir,” the guy answers. “I am my mother’s only son.”
The king took pity on his mother and said:
“Make sure you don’t tell anyone about what you saw on my head, or I’ll execute you.”
The guy swore to keep his mouth shut.
“If you find out,” he says, “that I’m chatting about this, immediately order my head to be taken off.”
The king gave the guy money and appointed him as his permanent barber.
And so the guy began to go to the king. He shaved his head, but didn’t tell anyone about the goat’s ears, he just began to wither and dry up. His mother looked at him, looked at him, became worried, and began to find out what was in his heart - was it some kind of grief, or maybe he had fallen ill? And the guy tell her that he knows one secret, but he doesn’t dare reveal it to anyone in the world, and if he reveals it, he will be executed.
“If I told someone, I would feel better,” says the guy.
And so the mother gave her son this advice: go into the field, dig a hole deeper, stick his head in it and say loudly three times about what is on his heart.
The son listened to his mother, went to the field, dug a hole, stuck his head in it and shouted three times at the top of his voice:
- King Troyan has goat ears!
Then he buried a hole and went home. And then the guy felt better, he began to get better, and began to work even harder.
Whether long or short, a densely-leaved tree with three branches grew in place of the hole. These branches grew and grew, and grew big. Shepherds came to that place to graze their cattle, saw a tree and made themselves pipes from its branches. The shepherd boy blew on the pipes, and from the pipes a voice was heard:
- King Troyan has goat ears!
And then a rumor spread among the people about the strange pipes, and reached King Troyan. He called the barber and said:
- What is this? You swore to me not to tell anyone your secret, and now the whole world has found out about it? How dare you spill the beans?
The guy began to make excuses, saying that he didn’t tell anyone about the secret. And the king grabbed the sword from its sheath, but did not have time to kill the barber: he fell to his knees and admitted that he had betrayed the secret to the earth. Then he said that a tree had grown in that place and if you cut a pipe out of it, it would shout: “King Trojan has goat ears!”
The king marveled, got into his chariot, took the barber with him and rode to the field where the tree grew. They approached the tree, and the king ordered to cut out a pipe. They blew on the pipe, and a voice was heard from it:
- King Troyan has goat ears!
Then King Troyan realized that it was impossible to keep any secret in the world. He forgave the barber and stopped hiding his ears.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru