Two brothers were traveling: one poor, the other rich. They both have a horse - the poor one has a mare, the rich one has a gelding. They stopped for the night nearby. The poor man's mare gave birth to a foal at night; the foal rolled under the rich man's cart. He wakes up the poor man in the morning:
- Get up, brother! My cart gave birth to a foal at night.
The brother stands up and says:
- How is it possible for a cart to give birth to a foal? My mare brought this. Rich says:
- If your mare had brought it, the foal would have been next to her!
They argued and went to the authorities. The rich gave the judges money, and the poor justified himself with words.
The matter reached the king himself. He ordered to call both brothers and asked them four riddles:
- What is stronger and faster than anything in the world? What's the fattest thing in the world? What's softest? And what's the cutest thing? And he gave them three days:
- Come on the fourth, give me the answer!
The rich man thought and thought, remembered his godfather and went to her to ask for advice.
She sat him down at the table, began to treat him, and she asked:
- Why are you so sad, kumanek?
“Yes, the sovereign asked me four riddles, but gave me only three days to do it.”
- What is it, tell me.
- That's it, godfather! The first riddle: what is stronger and faster than anything in the world?
- What a mystery! My husband has a brown mare; no she's faster! If you hit him with a whip, he will catch up with the hare.
— The second riddle: what is the fattest thing in the world?
— Another year we have a speckled hog feeding; He's become so fat that he can't stand up!
— The third riddle: what is softer than anything in the world?
- It’s a well-known thing - a down jacket, you can’t imagine anything softer!
— The fourth riddle: what is sweetest in the world?
“Ivanushka’s granddaughter is the cutest of all!”
- Well, thank you, godfather! I taught you wisdom, I will never forget you.
And the poor brother burst into bitter tears and went home. His seven-year-old daughter meets him:
“What are you sighing and shedding tears about, father?”
- How can I not sigh, how can I not shed tears? The king asked me four riddles that I would never be able to solve in my life.
- Tell me what riddles.
- And here they are, daughter: what is the strongest and fastest in the world, what is the fattest, what is the softest and what is the cutest?
- Go, father, and tell the king: the wind is strongest and fastest, the earth is fattest: whatever grows, whatever lives, the earth feeds! The softest thing is the hand: what a person does not lie on, but puts his hand under his head; and there is nothing sweeter in the world than sleep!
Both brothers came to the king - both the rich and the poor. The king listened to them and asked the poor man:
- Did you get there yourself or who taught you? The poor man answers:
- Your Royal Majesty! I have a seven-year-old daughter, she taught me.
- When your daughter is wise, here is a thread of silk for her; Let him weave a patterned towel for me by morning.
The man took the silk thread and came home sad and sad.
- Our trouble! - says to his daughter. “The king ordered a towel to be woven from this thread.
- Don't worry, father! - answered the seven-year-old; She broke off a twig from a broom, gave it to her father and punished him: “Go to the king, tell him to find the master who would make a cross from this twig: there would be something to weave a towel on!”
The man reported this to the king. The king gives him one and a half hundred eggs.
“Give it,” he says, “to your daughter; let him hatch one hundred and fifty chickens for me by tomorrow.
The man returned home even sadder, even sadder:
- Oh, daughter! If you dodge one trouble, another will come your way!
- Don't worry, father! - answered the seven-year-old. She baked the eggs and hid them for lunch and dinner, and sent her father to the king:
- Tell him that the chickens need one-day millet for food: in one day the field would be plowed, and the millet would be sown, compressed and threshed. Our chickens won’t even peck at any other millet.
The king listened and said:
“When your daughter is wise, let her come to me on her own in the morning - neither on foot, nor on horseback, neither naked, nor clothed, neither with a gift, nor without a gift.”
“Well,” the man thinks, “even my daughter won’t solve such a tricky problem; it’s time to completely disappear!”
- Don't worry, father! - his seven-year-old daughter told him. - Go to the hunters and buy me a live hare and a live quail.
Her father went and bought her a hare and a quail.
The next day, in the morning, the seven-year-old girl took off all her clothes, put on a net, took a quail in her hands, sat astride a hare and rode to the palace.
The king meets her at the gate. She bowed to the king.
- Here's a gift for you, sir! - and hands him a quail.
The king extended his hand, the quail fluttered - and flew away!
“Okay,” says the king, “as I ordered, so it was done.” Tell me now: after all, your father is poor, what do you feed on?
“My father catches fish on the dry shore and doesn’t set traps in the water, but I wear fish with my hem and cook fish soup.”
- What are you, stupid, when a fish lives on a dry shore? Fish swims in water!
- And you are smart! When have you seen a cart bring a foal?
The king decided to give the foal to the poor man, and took his daughter to him. When the seven-year-old grew up, he married her, and she became a queen.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru