Once upon a time, in a certain country, in a small hut there lived a girl named Jayda.
While walking through the forest one day, she noticed that the bees had left their nest, leaving honey in it, and she decided to collect it. “I will take it to the market and sell it. A little money wouldn’t hurt me,” she thought.
And Jayda ran home to get a glass jar. However, she did not know one important circumstance of her life. The fact is that the reason for her poverty was a malicious little genie, who tried his best to make sure nothing worked out for the girl.
The genie woke up, sensing that the girl was going to do something useful, and hurried to the scene, hoping to do some mischief. As soon as he saw what was happening, he turned into a tree branch and latched onto Jayda's arm. The jar fell and broke, and the honey spread on the ground. The genie, still in the form of a branch, swayed with laughter. “She’s going to go berserk!” - he chuckled.
But Jayda looked at the honey, shrugged her shoulders and said to herself: “Nothing, the ants will eat the honey, and maybe something will come of it.” She saw a stream of ants, whose scouts were already trying the honey to see if it could be useful to them. Jayda went through the forest to her hut and soon a horseman appeared towards her. Jaida saw how, a few meters short of her, the rider lazily raised his whip and lashed a tree growing by the road. It was a mulberry, and from the blow the ripe berries rained down on the ground.
She thought: “Good chance. I will pick the berries and take them to the market. Maybe something will come of this."
The genie watched her picking berries and laughed quietly.
When Jayda filled the basket, he turned into a donkey and silently followed her all the way to the market. When the girl sat down to rest, the donkey ran up to her and sniffed her hand. Jayda stroked his nose, but the nasty animal fell on the basket and crushed all the berries. Sweet juice flowed along the dusty road, and the smug cattle disappeared into the bushes with a joyful cry.
Jaida looked at the destruction with longing, but it so happened that the queen herself was passing along the same road at the same time, returning to her capital.
- Stop immediately! - she shouted to the porters. “This poor girl just lost everything she had.” Her donkey crushed the berries and ran away: if we don’t help her, she will disappear.
And so the queen took her into her palanquin, and they soon became friends. She gave the girl a house, and she soon succeeded in trading.
But the genie did not sleep either. Seeing the success Jayda had achieved, he approached her house, thinking about how best to destroy it. He noticed that the girl kept all her goods in a shed behind the house, and one day he set fire to the building and what was stored in it, and everything burned to the ground faster than anyone could tell.
Jayda ran out of the house, smelling smoke, and looked at the fire with despair. But soon she noticed a chain of ants carrying grain from the burning warehouse to a safe place. To help them, she lifted the stone covering their home, and as soon as she did this, a spring began to flow from under it.
Jayda tested the water, and soon all the city's residents gathered around her.
- Living water! What was predicted came true! - everyone shouted.
They told her what the prediction said: one day, after a fire and many disasters, the source will be found, and it will be found by a girl who does not pay attention to misfortunes. The last of the fountains of life will flow from this source.
So a little girl named Jaida became famous as the Princess of Living Water, whom she cares for to this day and who can grant immortality to those who do not pay attention to misfortunes.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru