A certain rich king had a very pretty daughter. When she got old enough to be married, she was promised to be the bride of him who could first catch a golden apple that the princess threw up in the air, and then perform three tasks that the king set.
Many a youth had caught the apple but failed to perform the tasks. At last a shepherd-boy came to try. His first task was this:
The king had a hundred hares in his stables. Whoever led them out to pasture in the morning and brought them all safely home at night, had performed the first task.
The shepherd took a day to consider whether he could do what was required. During that time he walked about the hills around. There he met and old man who asked him why he looked so thoughtful.
"Mmph, nobody can help me," the shepherd groaned.
"Tell me what is on your mind, and then maybe I can help you," said the man.
The shepherd told him all. The man gave him a small reed pipe, saying, "Keep this with care. It will be of great use to you." And without waiting to be thanked he disappeared.
The shepherd then went back to the king and said, "I will tend your hares!"
The hares were led out of the stable, but before the last came out, the first ones had disappeared over the mountains. The shepherd went into the fields and sat down on a little hillock, wondering what to do. Then he remembered his pipe and took it from his pocket. When he played a few notes on it, all the hares came to him and began to feed around him.
But the princess and her father did not like the idea that a low-born shepherd boy should win her, so they had plan to hinder him from bringing all the hares home. The princess went to him in common clothing with her face dyed so that he might not recognise her, but he did anyway. When she saw that all the hares were grazing around him, she asked if she could buy one from him
"No," answered the shepherd, "but you can earn one."
"How?" she asked.
"If you give me a kiss and keep company with me for half an hour," he answered.
At first she would not, but when she found that she could not get a hare in any other way, she let him have his way.
After a while he caught a hare for her and placed it in her basket. But about fifteen minutes after she went away with it the shepherd blew on his pipe. The hare jumped out of her basket at once and ran back to him.
Soon the old king came. He was riding on a donkey with a basked hanging on each side of his saddle, and had dressed up to disguise himself. The boy saw who he was anyway.
"Do you have any hares to sell?" asked the king.
"No, but you may earn one, if you please," answered the shepherd.
"How?" asked the king.
"If you kiss your donkey's backside," the shepherd answered, "you will get one."
Unwilling to do such a thing, the king offered the shepherd a heavy purse of gold for the hare instead. But the shepherd said there was no other way to get a hare from him, so at last the king the king gave his donkey a big kiss on its backside.
At once the shepherd caught a hare and placed it in one of the king's baskets. The king then rode away; but he had not gone very far when the shepherd took out his pipe and whistled a few notes. The hare made way at once and came back to the others at the sound of the music.
Before long the king reached home. "He is a cunning fellow that shepherd," he said; "I could not get any hare from him!" He did not say anything about what he had done to get one.
"Yes," said the princess, "I too found him cunning!" She said nothing of what she had done to get a hare either.
And as soon as evening came, the shepherd returned and counted the hares into the stables while the king stood beside him and counted. Yes, there were exactly one hundred hares.
"Your first task is done," said the king. "Now comes the second one. In my granary lie a hundred measures of turnip-seed and a hundred measures of lentil-seed. These are all mixed together. If you separate the one from the other and make two heaps of them during the night and without a candle, you will have accomplished the second task."
The shepherd was locked up in the granary where the seed was. When everything was quiet in the castle, he blew on his pipe. At once several thousand came crawling and carried the seeds here and there till the turnip and lentil-seeds were divided into two heaps. The ants left as soon as they had finished the task.
Early in the morning the king came down and found the task was done, He wondered how the shepherd could have done it, but set him the third task without making any remarks about the heaps.
The third task was in one night to eat up all the bread that was placed in a certain room. When the shepherd had done it, he would get the princess, promised the king.
As soon as night came the shepherd was placed in the bread-chamber. It was packed full of bread. First he ate out a space to stand upright in. Then, when everyone else had gone to bed, he played on his pipe. At once came a vast flock of mice and started to eat bread. At daybreak they had every loaf and crumb that the shepherd had left and had disappeared from the room.
When the shepherd saw this, he began to kick merrily at the door, crying out, "Open the door, hurry, open the door! I am hungry!"
Now the third task was carried out But the king still wanted to put aside the agreement, and said to the peasant, "You will have my daughter, if you tell us a sack full of silly stories first."
The shepherd began and went on half the day with a long string of silly stories; but the sack was still declared to be only half full. At length he said, "I have been lying in the grass at the side of my princess."
At these words the princess blushed and got crimson all over her face and neck, so much so that the king suspected that it was true and wondered when and where it had happened. "But the sack is not full yet," cried the king.
So the shepherd went on, "The king has also kissed his..."
"The sack is full, it is full!" screamed the king; for he would not let his courtiers and other people know what this was about.
So the shepherd married the princess after all. The wedding festivities lasted for fourteen days and were so splendid that I wish we too could have been there.
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