And now I’m not going to tell you a fairy tale—I’m going to tell you something that happened. In those good times... when? Oh, look, don't be scared! When pigs still wore boots, and cats sported boots, donkeys jingled their spurs, and hares chased foxes, in those distant times girls lived well. The dogs washed the dishes for them, and the cats dried them, the geese swept the rooms, the catfish washed the rags in the Grona River, and the crayfish rinsed them. At that time, the girls sat with folded hands by the warm stove and not one was afraid that they would not marry her.
And now don’t be afraid, dear girls, because pigs are again sporting boots, and cats are wearing boots, and donkeys are jingling their spurs. So don’t worry, you won’t stay at home for long. When the time comes, you don’t have to wash the dishes, don’t sweep the floors, don’t wash the dresses. You will sit with folded arms, and you will find a husband out of love and harmony, like our Goldilocks!!
-What kind of Goldilocks is this?
That's what we'll talk about. Calm down quickly and listen! Now it’s not a fairy tale that’s about to begin—it’s something that happened!
In the distant kingdom, the thirtieth state, behind a glass mountain, behind a wooden rock, behind a straw pillar lived a rich king. His only daughter, Goldilocks, has hair like the golden sun and eyes like the blue sky. Goldilocks had no end to suitors, ten for each finger, but she didn’t want to marry anyone.
It seems that King Redbeard was not bad, and his father would have given for him, but they called him Redbeard because his beard was red as fire. Goldilocks looks at that beard, and all desire to marry him disappears.
In vain Redbeard hovered around her, like a dove around a dove. It was in vain that Goldilocks’s father tried to persuade him: he was a great fellow, and there was no richer king! Just think - I don’t like it!
But Goldilocks is not in any way - no and no, not for him and not for anyone else!
The father endured for a long time, finally said:
- Well, my daughter, I won’t let you sit as a girl anymore! I won't allow myself to be embarrassed! For someone, but you will marry! I won’t force you, there are dozens of suitors for every finger, neither you nor I have any peace from them - choose yourself!
Goldilocks began to beg her father to allow him to sit at home and think for another year.
And then one day she calls out to her maid:
“Look,” he says, “there’s something itching in my head!”
The maid searched and searched until she really found it. What? Yes, sometimes it gets in your hair. This has never happened to the beautiful Goldilocks, but suddenly her maid found a huge louse! Another time, Goldilocks would have burned with shame, but here she was even happy and said:
“Don’t tell anyone about this louse, otherwise it will be bad for you!” The louse is not to blame for anything! We'll fatten her up!
They fed the louse little by little and kept it in a box until it grew like this! They skinned it, sent it to be tanned and dressed, and then they sewed the shoe together. Goldilocks again tells the maid to keep her mouth shut!
Before we knew it, a year had passed. The father calls his daughter and asks:
- Tell me, who will you marry?
“And I, father, will marry the one who guesses what my shoe is made of.” At first, let only the princes guess, and if they don’t guess, then at least they’re beggars!
They did it as they decided. The kings were the first to begin to tell fortunes, and among them Redbeard himself. But no matter how hard they guessed, no one could figure it out.
The father got angry and announced that he would give his daughter even to a beggar if he could find an answer to the riddle. They began to solve everything as much as they could, but again at random. Meanwhile, Redbeard thought of something. He went to the maid, promised this and that, and she told him what the shoe was made of.
And soon a beggar appeared at the royal palace on a skinny nag, harnessed to a broken cart. The servants are driving him away, why are you climbing into the royal court in such a racket? But the beggar stands his ground:
- He came, they say, to solve the riddle and take the bride with him.
And so it happened. The beggar looked at the shoe, guessed right away and said:
“If she could have been on her head before, why shouldn’t she now be on her leg!”
Our Goldilocks blushed to her very ears, began to beg him not to say a word further, and promised to marry him! And the father just said:
- Whoever you choose, get it!
She had to dress simpler so that she could match the groom and get married quickly. And then the beggar put his young wife in a cart and shouted:
“But, nag, run while you’re alive, and if you die, we’ll get another one!”
And neither shaky nor shaky, they rolled away from the royal court. People come running from everywhere to look, but Goldilocks sits, all crimson, and does not raise her eyes.
They trudged and trudged and reached a large field. There is a flock of white sheep grazing there. Goldilocks asks:
- Hey, shepherd, whose sheep are these?
- How - whose? King Redbeard! He is so rich and kind that he has no equal under the sun! - answers the shepherd.
“Oh, I’m unhappy! Where was my head when I didn’t want to marry him?” Goldilocks sighs. “After all, I could have been the mistress of all this - and now I’m going with the poor beggar!”
They trudge further, see green meadows, and herds of cows graze on them.
- Eh, shepherd, whose cattle are these? - asks Goldilocks.
- Whose as? King Redbeard! After all, he is so rich and kind that he has no equal under the sun!
“Oh, I’m unhappy, where was my head when I didn’t want to marry him? After all, I could be the mistress of all this, and now here I am going with a poor beggar!” - thinks Goldilocks.
He sees a herd of horses grazing in the lowlands.
- Hey, shepherd, whose horses?
- Like whose? King Redbeard! The richest and kindest under the sun!
“Oh, I’m unhappy! Why didn’t I marry him! After all, all this could have been mine, and now I’m going with a beggar!” They reached high mountains and saw a big city.
- Whose city is this? - asks Goldilocks.
- This is the city of King Redbeard! - her husband answers.
“Isn’t that where you’re taking me?”
- You guessed right, wifey, there. I have a hut not far from the palace, we will live there. I will start begging and find you some work. I’ll bring you something, you’ll earn something, so we’ll feed ourselves! We’ll live with you like two doves on a green branch, won’t we, my darling?
Goldilocks is in tears and cannot say a word.
But my husband doesn’t pay attention: he drove me and dropped me off near his hut. In the morning, at dawn, he woke up Goldilocks and ordered:
“I’m going to beg, and you go to the castle.” I made an agreement yesterday. You will begin to weed flax. This is not a difficult matter. Just pick carrots and parsley from the garden and put them in your pocket, everything will help on the farm! Don't turn up your nose too much! Stew with carrots and parsley would be good! You'll cook it when I arrive. Well, go ahead, and I'll lock the house.
And with those words, he kicked her out of the house and trudged off, seemingly to beg, into the city.
What could Goldilocks do? She didn’t want to go to the castle, but she had to. All the workers had already gathered at the gate and took her with them. In the meantime, there was talk that the young King Redbeard was getting married and that’s why he was putting everything in order.
Goldilocks just took a deep breath and said nothing. Flax flies, flax flies, but I remembered my husband’s order and picked carrots and parsley from the garden bed. I started returning home in the evening, and the gardener was standing at the gate, emptying each worker’s pockets. None of them have anything, only Goldilocks has carrots and parsley hidden away.
The gardener attacked her, started making noise, screaming, and didn’t want to give her money for the work!
At home, her husband scolds her for being a klutz, scolding her for not being able to cook stew. And he adds:
“Tomorrow, be the first to go to work, otherwise I’ll have to go to prison for you, because Redbeard won’t joke!” It's your own fault, get out of it yourself!
In the morning Goldilocks came to the palace, and the gardener mocked her: he grabbed her by the hand and looked at her:
“Well,” he says, “show me your fingers, are they as good at work as they are at stealing?”
He looked at her fingers and shouted:
- Look, look! And this white-haired girl takes on the menial work! She doesn't have to work, just dance!
A maid walked past - the gardener began to ask her to take the white-handed girl into the rooms, fill the feather beds with down, and not to send him such workers anymore.
They took Goldilocks to the castle and told him to clean up the chambers. Goldilocks looks - even at home they didn’t have such wealth.
And then they called her: come here, they say, here they will choose which of you is the most beautiful, and the thinnest, and they will try on princess dresses for that one. They stopped there. They tried on all the dresses for her, immediately cut a new one, embroidered it in gold - and everyone is in a hurry, in a hurry, because tomorrow the king’s bride must dance her first dance in a new dress! Late in the evening they sent Goldilocks home. At home, her husband reprimands her:
-Where have you been for so long? What were you doing there? What did you bring me?
- Because they didn’t let me go for a long time! I didn’t bring anything because they didn’t give me anything! - Goldilocks burst into tears.
- Gee! - the husband grumbles, - well, I took the breadwinner as my wife! How can we continue to live if you haven’t brought anything home for the second day!
But he saw that she was not herself due to grief. He began to cajole her.
- Okay, don't be sad! It’s good that they give me alms! I was at the castle today, they were baking wedding cakes in the kitchen. And they gave me something. We have enough for dinner.
And he takes out a full bowl of pies from his bag. Even Goldilocks liked it - no worse than at home. And she slept well that night, because her husband became kinder.
Yes, only in the morning the beggar again for his own:
- Go to the castle. I assigned you to the kitchen and said that you are clever for this kind of work, that’s why they gave you more pies, because you liked them! There, food is being prepared for the wedding; Redbeard himself and his young wife will arrive in the evening. Just look, if they give you anything, don’t eat it yourself! Take this pot, and so that no one notices it, tie it under your apron. Look, don’t come home without a warm stew, I haven’t eaten hot for a long time!
With these words, he escorted her out of the house, and he himself went, as if to beg.
Goldilocks liked it in the kitchen. And she liked it there because she knew better than anyone how and what to cook and how to serve it to the table. I didn’t have time to look back, but the day had passed. Under her apron, in a pot, she already kept some stew for her husband. She started to get ready to go home, but they wouldn’t let her in. How can you leave and not see the first dance? They didn’t let Goldilocks go, they pushed him into the chambers, even if he could stand at the door and look at the guests.
And the chambers are already full of gentlemen, the first dance begins. All the gentlemen grabbed their ladies and lined up in couples, each had a lady standing next to him, only for some reason the groom didn’t have a lady and couldn’t see a suitable one anywhere. But then the groom noticed Goldilocks near the door, picked her up and started twisting and turning! The stew splashed under her apron and splashed all over her dress! Goldilocks was embarrassed, and a cry rose up around her:
- Oh, ah, our king’s lady spilled all over her dress!
The dancing has stopped, there is chaos and hubbub all around! Goldilocks didn’t even notice how the maids surrounded her on all sides and took her to a side room, and there they took off her simple dress and put on the same gold one that they measured and sewed yesterday. She refuses, but the maids don’t listen, they dress her, dress her up - and explain that she is so beautiful, like a clear star!
Suddenly the doors opened and Redbeard himself walked in, laughed and said:
- Well, my dear, do you recognize your husband from the poor hut? I recognize you both in a simple dress and in a royal dress!
Goldilocks understood what was happening here! She just shook her finger at him, smiled and grabbed his hand.
Redbeard introduced his dear wife to all the guests and they began to walk and have fun and had fun until the very white morning.
And then things got even better. Goldilocks's father came to visit Goldilocks, and now her red-bearded husband is dearer to her than anyone else in the world! They say that nowadays Goldilocks fears one thing - that his red beard might begin to turn grey.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru