The Peasant's Wise Daughter

The Peasant's Wise Daughter

     There was once a poor peasant who had no land, but only a small house,
and one daughter. Then said the daughter, "We ought to ask our lord the King
for a bit of newly-cleared land." When the King heard of their poverty, he
presented them with a bit of land, which she and her father dug up, and
intended to sow with a little corn and grain of that kind. When they had dug
nearly the whole of the field, they found in the earth a mortar made of pure
gold. "Listen," said the father to the girl, "as our lord the King has been so
gracious and presented us with the field, we ought to give him this mortar in
return for it." The daughter, however, would not consent to this, and said,
"Father, if we have the mortar without having the pestle as well, we shall
have to get the pestle, so you had much better say nothing about it." He
would, however, not obey her, but took the mortar and carried it to the King,
said that he had found it in the cleared land, and asked if he would accept it
as a present. The King took the mortar, and asked if he had found nothing
besides that? "No," answered the countryman. Then the King said that he must
now bring him the pestle. The peasant said they had not found that, but he
might just as well have spoken to the wind; he was put in prison, and was to
stay there until he produced the pestle. The servants had daily to carry him
bread and water, which is what people get in prison, and they heard how the
man cried out continually, "Ah! if I had but listened to my daughter! Alas,
alas, if I had but listened to my daughter!" Then the servants went to the
King and told him how the prisoner was always crying, "Ah, if I had but
listened to my daughter!" and would neither eat nor drink. So he commanded the
servants to bring the prisoner before him, and then the King asked the peasant
why he was always crying, "Ah! if I had but listened to my daughter!" and what
it was that his daughter had said. "She told me that I ought not to take the
mortar to you, for I should have to produce the pestle as well." "If you have
a daughter who is as wise as that, let her come here." She was therefore
obliged to appear before the King, who asked her if she really was so wise,
and said he would set her a riddle, and if she could guess that, he would
marry her. She at once said yes, she would guess it. Then said the King, "Come
to me not clothed, not naked, not riding, not walking, not in the road, and
not out of the road, and if thou canst do that I will marry thee." So she went
away, put off everything she had on, and then she was not clothed, and took a
great fishing net and seated herself in it and wrapped it entirely round and
round her, and then she was not naked, and she hired an ass, and tied the
fisherman's net to its tail, so that it was forced to drag her along, and that
was neither riding nor walking. The ass had also to drag her in the ruts, so
that she only touched the ground with her great toe, and that was neither
being in the road nor out of the road. And when she arrived in that fashion,
the King said she had guessed the riddle and fulfilled all the conditions.
Then he ordered her father to be released from the prison, took her to wife,
and gave into her care all the royal possessions.

     Now when some years had passed, the King was once drawing up his troops
on parade, when it happened that some peasants who had been selling wood
stopped with their waggons before the palace; some of them had oxen yoked to
them, and some horses. There was one peasant who had three horses, one of
which was delivered of a young foal, and it ran away and lay down between two
oxen which were in front of the waggon. When the peasants came together, they
began to dispute, to beat each other and make a disturbance, and the peasant
with the oxen wanted to keep the foal, and said one of the oxen had given
birth to it, and the other said his horse had had it, and that it was his. The
quarrel came before the King, and he gave the verdict that the foal should
stay where it had been found, and so the peasant with the oxen, to whom it did
not belong, got it. Then the other went away, and wept and lamented over his
foal. Now he had heard how gracious his lady the Queen was because she herself
had sprung from poor peasant folks, so he went to her and begged her to see if
she could not help him to get his foal back again. Said she, "Yes, I will tell
thee what to do, if thou wilt promise me not to betray me. Early to-morrow
morning, when the King parades the guard, place thyself there in the middle of
the road by which he must pass, take a great fishing-net and pretend to be
fishing; go on fishing too, and empty out the net as if thou hadst got it
full" - and then lhe told him also what he was to say if he was questioned by
the King. The next day, therefore, the pleasant stood there, and fished on dry
ground. When the King passed by, and saw that, he sent his messenger to ask
what the stupid man was about? He answered, "I am fishing." The messenger
asked how he could fish when there was no water whatever there? The peasant
said, "It is as easy for me to fish on dry land as it is for an ox to have a
foal." The messenger went back and took the answer to the King, who ordered
the peasant to be brought to him and told him that this was not his own idea,
and he wanted to know whose it was? The peasant must confess that at once. The
peasant, however, would not do so, and said always, God forbid he should! the
idea was his own. They laid him, however, on a heap of straw, and beat him and
tormented him so long that at last he admitted that he had got the idea from
the Queen.

     When the King reached home again, he said to his wife, "Why hast thou
behaved so falsely to me? I will not have thee any longer for a wife; thy time
is up, go back to the place from whence thou camest - to thy peasant's hut."
One favour, however, he granted her; she might take with her the one thing
that was dearest and best in her eyes; and thus was she dismissed. She said,
"Yes, my dear husband, if you command this, I will do it," and she embraced
him and kissed him, and said she would take leave of him. Then she ordered a
powerful sleeping draught to be brought to drink farewell to him; the King
took a long draught, but she took only a little. He soon fell into a deep
sleep, and when she perceived that, she called a servant and took a fair white
linen cloth and wrapped the King in it, and the servant was forced to carry
him into a carriage that stood before the door, and she drove with him to her
own little house. She laid him in her own little bed, and he slept one day and
one night without awakening, and when he awoke he looked round and said, "Good
God! where am I? He called his attendants, but none of them were there. At
length his wife came to his bedside and said, "My dear lord and King, you told
me I might bring away with me from the palace that which was dearest and most
precious in my eyes - I have nothing more precious and dear than yourself, so
I have brought you with me." Tears rose to the King's eyes and he said, "Dear
wife, thou shalt be mine and I will be thine," and he took her back with him
to the royal palace and was married again to her, and at the present time they
are very likely still living.