Once upon a time there lived a king. And he loved fairy tales so much that he could not spend a day without them. But how easy it was to tell that king fairy tales, since they retold them all to him, and he listened to them all over again! And not only that: you don’t just tell him a fairy tale, but definitely a new one, which he has never even heard of. If you tell the old story, they will certainly cut off your head. This was his decision, this was his order. That's why he's a king. Well, heads flew off their shoulders in his state, because there was no one to tell a fairy tale that the king did not know.
So the day came when no one agreed to go to the king, no one decided to lay down their heads for the sake of the king’s whim.
Ministers ran in and servants began to fuss. And the king screams:
- If you can’t imagine a storyteller, I’ll take off everyone’s heads!
Now it’s clear why the ministers ran in?
That's it!
However, don’t run, there are no hunters who will give their heads so easily. Nobody comes, that's all. And the king hisses!..
Suddenly, imagine, there was one fellow, a desperate head! I volunteered myself.
“Come on,” he says, “I’ll go to the king!” I took it and went.
The king sat him down and said:
- Tell me!
And the fellow begins:
“It was in ancient times when my grandfather and your grandfather built a barn together, and it was so big that a squirrel could barely gallop along its log from end to end in a whole day.” What a barn it was!.. Haven’t you heard?
“I haven’t heard,” said the king.
“Well, if you haven’t heard,” said the good fellow, “then go to sleep, and I’ll come tomorrow.”
And he left.
The next day comes. The Tsar himself offers him a chair and says:
- Tell a story!
And he begins:
- Do you remember what barn my grandfather and your grandfather built? So, they raised a bull in that barn, and such a bull that a swallow had to fly all day to fly from one of its horns to another! Have you heard about this?
- No, I haven’t!
“Well, if you haven’t heard this fairy tale,” the young man says boldly, “then go to bed, and I’ll come tomorrow.”
He left and took his head away again.
The king lies, turns from side to side, thinks:
“What a smart guy, he knows how to compose! But I’m not foolish either: if I don’t have enough intelligence, I’ll overcome with cunning. If I pick on you, they’ll cut off your head!”
In the morning the king summoned his ministers and said to them:
- Come listen to fairy tales in the evening. And remember: whatever this fellow says, you say in unison that you have already heard.
Well done for the third time. The king brings a chair out to meet him. Well done and says:
- When your father and my father reigned next door, your father borrowed gold from my father: forty barrels were filled with that gold, and each barrel was full to the top. That's how much gold there was in them... Did you hear?
And the ministers remembered the royal order and shouted all at once:
- We heard!
“Well, since you heard,” said the young man, “then the time has come - pay off your debts, king!”
What to do? There’s no time for execution here, no time for the head, what a shame - he took the gold and won’t give it back! The king had to fork out money!
They began to collect gold, collected everything, swept the entire treasury clean, and only one barrel was collected.
Well, our fellow is not greedy. One barrel was enough for him.
He took the gold and left. And from then on the king was careful not to cut off heads! And I listened to fairy tales, and also said thank you.
That's it!
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru