Long before the time of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, East Anglia was ruled by a king who lived with his court in Colchester.
When he was at the height of his fame, his wife, the queen, died. She left him his only daughter, about fifteen years old, so beautiful and kind that everyone marveled at her. But then the king heard about one very rich lady - a widow with her only daughter - and decided to marry her, although this lady was an ugly, hunchbacked old woman with a hooked nose. And her daughter turned out to be a yellow-faced plain girl, angry and envious - in a word, from the same cloth as her mother.
But still, a few weeks later, the king, accompanied by all the nobility, brought his ugly bride to the palace, where they were married.
And no sooner had the new queen settled in the palace than she set the king against his beautiful daughter with her false slander. The young princess saw that her father stopped loving her and did not want to stay at court any longer. Once she met her father in the garden and with tears in her eyes begged him to let her go - she said that she wanted to seek happiness.
The king agreed and ordered his wife to give the princess whatever she wanted for the journey. The princess went to the queen, and she gave her a loaf of black bread and a piece of stale cheese in a canvas bag and a bottle of beer. It was a pitiful dowry for the royal daughter, but the princess took everything she was given, thanked her and set off.
She walked through groves, forests and valleys and finally saw an old man sitting on a stone at the entrance to the cave. The old man told her:
- Good afternoon, beauty! Where are you going in such a hurry?
“I’m going to seek happiness, my father,” answered the princess.
-What do you have in your bag and bottle?
“I have bread and cheese in the bag, and a tasty, weak wine in the bottle.” Would you like to have a taste?
- With great pleasure! - answered the old man. The girl laid out all the food and invited the old man to eat. The old man had breakfast, thanked her and said:
– You will come across a thick hedge of thorny bushes. It's difficult to get through. But take this twig in your hands, wave it three times and say: “Fence, hedge, let me pass,” and it will immediately part. You will go further and see a well. Sit on its edge. Then three golden heads will float up and talk to you, and you do everything they ask you to do.
The princess promised that she would do so, and said goodbye to the old man. So she approached the hedge, waved the twig three times, and the hedge parted and let her through. Then the princess approached the well, but before she had time to sit down on its edge, a golden head floated up and sang:
Wash me, comb me
Yes, put me on the shore,
So that I dry out wonderfully,
And to those who pass by,
To make me seem beautiful.
“Okay,” answered the princess.
She took the head into her lap, combed her hair with a silver comb, then laid it on the yellow sand.
Then a second head surfaced, followed by a third, and both of them asked for the same thing as the first. The princess complied with all their requests, then took out her supplies and began to eat.
Meanwhile, the heads conferred:
- What should we give this girl for her kindness? And the first head said:
“I will make her so beautiful that the most powerful prince on earth will love her.”
The second one said:
“And I will give her such a gentle voice that the singing of a nightingale cannot be compared with.” And the third said:
- My gift will be no worse. She is the daughter of a king, and I will make sure that she becomes the wife of the greatest ruler in the world. This is how I will make her happy.
Finally, the princess lowered her head back into the well and moved on. Soon she met a young king who was hunting in the park with his retinue. The princess wanted to hide, but the king noticed her, came up, and when he saw how beautiful she was and heard her gentle voice, he passionately fell in love with her and immediately begged her to become his wife.
The groom found out that she was the daughter of the King of Colchester, and as soon as they got married, he decided to go to his father-in-law. The newlyweds arrived in a chariot decorated with gold and gems.
The old king was amazed when he learned how lucky his daughter was, and the young king told him about everything that had happened to her. The whole court rejoiced at the princess’s happiness, only the evil queen and her wobbly daughter almost burst with anger.
Feasts, fun and dancing lasted for many days. Finally, the young couple went home, taking with them the dowry that the father had given to his own daughter.
Then it occurred to the ugly princess that since her sister was so lucky when she went around the world to seek happiness, then she would be lucky too. So she announced to her mother that she would go to seek her happiness, and she was prepared for a long journey. They sewed her rich clothes, gave her sugar, almonds, and sweets for the journey; She also took with her a huge bottle of malaga and went with her supplies along the same road as her sister.
She approached the cave, and the old man asked her:
-Where are you hurrying, girl?
- What do you care? - she answered.
- Well, what do you have in your bag and bottle? he asked.
“There is something, but not about your honor,” she answered.
“Won’t you give me a little,” the old man asked.
- Not a piece, not a sip, so that you choke! The old man frowned and said:
- A bitter fate awaits you.
And the princess wandered on and soon came to a hedge. I noticed a gap in the fence and decided that I would make my way to the other side. But that was not the case: the bushes closed and the thorns dug into the traveler’s body. She barely made it through the thicket. The thorns pricked her until she bled, and she began to look for water to wash herself. She looked around and saw a well. As soon as she sat down on the edge of the well, a golden head floated up and began to ask:
Wash me, comb me
Yes, put me on the shore..
But before she could stop speaking, the evil princess hit her with a bottle and said:
- Here you have it instead of washing!
Then a second head surfaced, followed by a third, but the princess greeted them no better. And then the heads began to hold advice on what misfortunes to punish the evil princess with.
The first head said:
- Let leprosy strike her face! The second one said:
“Let her voice become as creaky as a corncrake’s!”
The third said:
- Let her marry a poor village shoemaker!
That's it.
And the princess went further and finally came to some town. It was a market day, and there were a lot of people crowding the streets. But as soon as the people saw the ugly face of the princess and heard her raspy voice, everyone fled; only the poor village shoemaker remained.
Not long before he had to repair the shoes of an old hermit. But he didn’t have any money, so instead of paying the shoemaker he gave the shoemaker a jar of ointment for leprosy and a bottle of tincture for a squeaky voice. The shoemaker took pity on the girl, approached her and asked who she was
“I am the stepdaughter of the King of Colchester,” answered the princess.
“Oh, that’s how it is,” said the shoemaker. - Well, if I cure you - I make sure that your face and voice become the same - will you take me as your husband for this?
- Certainly! - she answered. - With pleasure.
And the shoemaker cured the princess with his drugs in a few weeks. Then they got married and went to Colchester Castle.
When the queen found out that her daughter had married some poor shoemaker, she became so angry that she hanged herself out of anger. And the old king was glad that he got rid of her so quickly, and to celebrate, he gave the shoemaker a hundred pounds, so that the couple would immediately leave his court and go somewhere far away, into the wilderness.
They lived like this for many years: the shoemaker repaired his boots, and his wife threaded him.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru