The Wizard’s Fairy Tale

Once upon a time there was a king who was famous throughout the country for his wisdom. He knew everything in the world, and it seemed that even the most secret things could reach his ears. However, the king had an odd habit: every day after supper, when the table was cleared and everyone else had left, one of his faithful servants would bring him another dish. But the dish was covered with a lid, and no one knew what was in it, not even the attendant, for the king always waited until he was alone in the room before lifting the lid to eat.

This situation continued for a long time, and finally one day, the waiter who served the bowl could no longer restrain his curiosity, and brought the dish into his room. He carefully locked the door, lifted the lid, and saw that the dish on the plate was a white snake. After seeing it, he couldn't help but want to taste it, so he cut off a small piece with a knife and put it in his mouth. No sooner had the snake meat touched his tongue than he heard some strange little voices whispering outside the window. He went to the window and listened carefully, and found that it was a group of sparrows chatting, telling each other what they had seen and heard in the fields and forests. After eating that piece of snake meat, he can now understand the language of animals!

Coincidentally, on this day, the queen's most beautiful ring disappeared, because the attendant could go anywhere, so the suspicion of stealing the ring fell on him. The king sent him to curse him, and threatened that if he did not tell who the thief was next morning, he would himself be condemned as a thief, and be put to death. The squire repeated his innocence, but it was no use, and the king did not change his mind.

The attendant was full of worry and fear, so he went into the yard to think about how to get rid of his bad luck. A few ducks were sitting quietly by the stream in the yard, combing their feathers with their beaks, and whispering to each other. The servant stood by and listened. They respectively told about where they had been all morning and what good food they had found.

One of the ducks complained, "I have something very heavy in my stomach. I was in such a hurry to eat that I swallowed a ring that was under the queen's window."

The attendant immediately grabbed the duck by the neck, took it to the kitchen, and said to the cook, "Here is a fat duck for you. Please kill it."

"Okay," said the cook, weighing the duck with his hands, "this guy has worked so hard to fatten himself up that he's been waiting to go into the oven." So saying, the cook chopped off the duck's head. When digging out the internal organs of the duck, I found the queen's ring inside.

This time the attendant easily proved his innocence. The king felt that he had not been so wronged, and wanted to make amends, so he allowed him to make a request, and also promised him the best post in the palace if he asked. But the attendant declined all this, and only asked him to give him a horse and some travel expenses, so that he could go out and see the outside world. The king granted his request, and he set off on his way.

One day, he came to a pond and saw three fish in the pond were entangled in the reeds, and they wanted to drink water with their mouths opening one by one. Although fish were often said to be dumb, he could hear them moaning and moaning at their own death. He was kind enough to dismount and put the three fish back into the water. The fish was so happy that he poked his head out of the water and shouted to him, "We will remember you, and we will repay you for saving our lives."

He rode on. After a while, he thought he heard something in the sand under his feet. He listened for a while, and heard an ant king complaining: "Why don't those humans riding stupid animals stay away from us? How many of us have been trampled to death by the heavy hooves of this stupid horse!" The horse leads to the side path. The ant king shouted to him: "We will remember you. Kindness will be rewarded!"

The path led him into a forest. He saw two old crows standing by the nest, throwing young crows out.

"You lazy, useless things! Get out!" the old crow scolded, "We can't support you anymore. You have grown up so much, you should support yourself." But those little crows One lay on the ground, flapping its wings and shouting: "We are so poor! No one can help us. We have to feed ourselves, but we can't even fly! What else do we have but to lie here and starve to death?" What other way?" The kind young man jumped off the horse, pulled out his sword, killed the horse, and left it for the little crow as food. The little crows immediately jumped over, eating and shouting: "We will remember you. Kindness will be rewarded!"

He can only walk on two legs now. After walking a long way, he came to a big city. A group of people chattered around on the street, and one person on horseback shouted loudly: "The princess wants to choose a husband, but the suitor must complete a difficult task, and if he fails to complete it, he will have to sacrifice his life." Many People have tried it, but they just lost their lives in vain. As soon as our young man saw the princess, he was so fascinated by her beauty that he forgot the danger and went to the king to propose.

He was taken to the sea, and a ring was thrown into the sea in his presence. The king ordered him to fish the ring up from the bottom of the sea, and said, "If you can't get it up, we'll push you back into the sea until the waves swallow you up." They all felt sorry for the handsome boy, and each of them quietly Gone, leaving him alone at the beach.

He stood by the sea, thinking about what to do. Suddenly, he saw three fish swimming towards him, and it was the three fish he had rescued. The middle fish had a shell in its mouth and when it reached the bank it spat it out at the young man's feet. He picked up the shell and opened it, only to see that the golden ring was inside. He excitedly took the ring to the king, thinking that the king would give him the promised reward.

However, when the proud princess learned that he had a humble background, she looked down on him very much and asked him to complete the second task first. She went to the garden, sprinkled ten bags of millet on the grass with her own hands, and said, "Before sunrise tomorrow, you must pick up all of these, not a single grain is missing!"

The young man sat in the garden, thinking how he could accomplish the task. But he couldn't think of anything, so he just sat there sadly, waiting for dawn to be taken to be executed. Unexpectedly, when the first ray of sunlight shone into the garden, he saw that the ten bags of millet were lined up beside him, and not a single grain was missing. It turned out that the ant king brought thousands of ants here at night. These little animals who thanked each other worked tirelessly to pick up all the millet and put them in bags.

In a little while the Princess herself came into the garden, and was greatly astonished to see that the young man had done what he had been given him to do. But her proud heart was not yet conquered, so she said, "Although he has accomplished two tasks, I cannot marry him unless he brings an apple from the tree of life."

The young man didn't know where the tree of life grew, but he set out anyway, and was going to keep looking for it until he couldn't go any further. But he didn't have much hope. He searched all over the three kingdoms, and one day came to a forest. He was lying under a tree and was just about to go to sleep when he heard a rustling sound on a branch and a golden apple fell into his hand! At the same moment the three crows flew down and landed on his lap, saying, "We are the three crows which you saved. When we were grown up, we heard that you were looking for golden apples, so we flew across the sea, At the end of the world where the tree of life grows, I picked apples for you."

The young man went home with great joy, and took the golden apples with him to the fair princess, who had nothing more to say. They cut the fruit of life in half and ate it, and her heart was filled with love for him, and they lived happily ever after.