The old king had a daughter, young, pretty and so smart that the rumor about her wisdom reached the distant kingdom. So her father decided to marry her off. But no matter how much I begged, it was all in vain. The beautiful princess was stubborn. “I won’t get married” - that’s all. Her father persuaded her and persuaded her, and finally she agreed.
“Okay, have it your way,” says the princess, “but on this condition: I will marry the one who asks me a riddle that cannot be solved.” And whose riddle I solve will be taken off my shoulders.
“Why does she put on airs? Baba, she is a woman, even though she has a lot of intelligence. There will be a man smarter than you,” thought the king and did as she asked.
Here the suitors have gathered from different lands, from near and far. There were all kinds of tribes here: both noble and ignorant, rich and poor, but not one was able to come up with unsolved riddles. And the executioner cut off everyone's head.
And in one village there lived a poor woman with her son. All they had was a few chickens and pigeons. My son was turning twenty. God did not harm him with his health and strength. Once he says to his mother:
“Let me go and tell the princess a riddle.”
His mother objected and begged him not to go anywhere:
- After all, you will disappear for a penny, you foolish little head.
But the son stands his ground. His mother saw that she couldn’t hold him back and agreed for the sake of appearances, but in her heart she reasoned: if he was destined to die, it would be better to die by his mother’s hand than by the hand of the executioner. I roasted two pigeons and gave them to my son for the trip. And those pigeons were poisoned. A dog, shaggy Grivets, followed his son. They walked and walked, then the young man noticed that the dog was hungry, and threw both pigeons to him. The dog ate the pigeons and died. The young man left him on the road and went on his way. He walked and walked, and lost his way. He returned to where the dog remained lying, and lo and behold, he was no longer there, and in that very place twelve dead crows were lying. I collected them and moved on. He walked and walked, and a dark night overtook him on the way; he spent the night in the forest. At midnight a band of robbers was walking through that forest; there were twenty-four robbers in it. They took the young man to their den. Then he remembered about the crows, plucked them, cut off their heads and legs and roasted them for dinner for the robbers. From such a dinner, all twenty-four murderers went to the next world.
In the morning the young man set off again. Soon the forest ended. The traveler went out onto the plain and saw a city in the distance, and on the mountain a royal castle. He began to think about what riddle he could tell the princess. I thought and thought and finally came up with: “Let me make a wish about what happened to me on the way.” Came to the castle. The servants immediately took him to the princess. She sits importantly on the throne, and around her are the courtiers and all the nobility.
The young man boldly approached the princess and, at her sign, spoke:
— Two dead men killed a living one; the one killed killed twelve living ones, and those twelve killed twenty-four; and the one who should have died first remained alive. How did this happen?
The princess thinks, turns over her books, where all sorts of riddles are written down. In the courtyard, the executioner is already preparing the scaffold to execute the young man, and in the castle the princess is racking her brains over a riddle. In the end, the wise princess gave up, admitted that she was unable to guess the riddle, and ordered the young man to explain it.
“When I got ready to come here,” he said, “my mother tried to dissuade me in every possible way.” She didn’t want me to find death on the chopping block, and therefore she decided to poison me and for this purpose she fried two pigeons and put poison in them. On the way, I gave them to my hungry dog, and he immediately died. Twelve crows flew at the dog, and twenty-four robbers ate the crows. This is what happened to me on the way to the castle.
The princess agreed to marry him, and the wedding took place that same evening. They set a feast for the whole world. And when the guests had drunk and eaten, the king slammed his fist on the table and said that he had never had so much fun. Then he picked up the scullery maid and started dancing with her, so much so that even the crown on his head was jumping.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru