Not very far from a town where dwelt the king lived once upon a time a farmer.
He was well to do and had three daughters; the eldest was twenty years of age,
the two others younger, but both marriageable. Once, when they were walking
outside their father's farm, they saw the king coming riding on horseback with
two followers, his secretary and his bootmaker. The king was unmarried, as
were also those two men. When they saw him, the eldest of the sisters said, "I
do not wish anything higher than to be the wife of the king's shoemaker." Said
the second, "And I of the king's secretary." Then the youngest said? "I wish
that I were the wife of the king himself." Now the king heard that they were
talking together, and said to his followers, "I will go to the girls yonder
and know what it is they were talking about. It seemed to me that I heard one
of them say, 'The king himself."' His followers said that what the girls had
been chattering about could hardly be of much importance. The king did not
heed this, however, but declared that they would all go to the girls and have
a talk with them. This they did. The king then asked what they had been
talking about a moment ago, when he and his men passed them. The sisters were
unwilling to tell the truth, but being pressed hard by the king, did so at
last. Now as the damsels pleased the king, and he saw that they were both
handsome and fair-spoken particularly the youngest of them, he said that all
should be as they had wished it. The sisters were amazed at this, but the
king's will must be done.
So the three sisters were married, each to the husband she had chosen. But
when the youngest sister had become queen, the others began to cast on her
looks of envy and hatred, and would have her, at any cost, dragged down from
her lofty position. And they laid a plot for the accomplishment of this their
will. When the queen was going to be confined for the first time, her sisters
got leave to act as her midwives. But as soon as the child was born they hid
it away, and ordered it to be thrown into a slough into which all the filth
was cast. But the man to whom they had entrusted this task could not bring
himself to do it, so put the child on the bank of the slough, thinking that
some one might find it and save its life. And so it fell out; for an old man
chanced to pass the slough soon afterwards and finding a crying child on the
bank, thought it a strange find, took it up and brought it to his home,
cherishing it as he could. The queen's sisters took a whelp and showed it to
the king as his queen's offspring. The king was grieved at this tale, but,
being as fond of the queen as of his own life, he restrained his anger and
punished her not.
At the second and third confinement of the queen her sisters played the same
trick: they exposed the queen's children in order to have them drowned in the
slough. The man however, always left them on the bank, and it so happened that
the same old earl always passed by and took up the children, and carried them
home, and brought them up as best he could. The queen's sisters said that the
second time the queen was confined she had given birth to a kitten, and the
third time, to a log of wood. At this the king waxed furiously wroth, and
ordered the queen to be thrown into the house where he kept a lion as he did
not wish this monster to fill his kingdom with deformities. And the sisters
thought that they had managed their boat well and were proud of their success.
The lion, however, did not devour the queen, but even gave her part of his
food and was friendly towards her and thus the queen lived with the lion, a
wretched enough life without anybody's knowing anything about it.
Now the story turns to the old man who fostered the king's children. The
eldest of these, a boy, he called Vilhjámr, the second, also a boy, Sigurdr;
the third child was a girl and her name was unknown. All that came to him, or
with whom he met, the old man would ask if they knew nothing of the children
he had found on the bank of the slough. But no one seemed to have the faintest
notion about their birth or descent. As the children grew up they were hopeful
and fine-looking. The earl had now waxed very old, and, expecting his end, he
gave the children this rede, always to ask every one to whom they spoke for
news of their family and birth, in order that they might perchance be able at
last to trace out the truth. He himself told them all he knew about the
matter. After this the old man died, and the children followed closely his
advice. Once there came to them an old man, of whom they asked the same
questions as of all others. He said he could not give them any hints on the
matter himself, but that he could point out one to them who was able to do so.
He told them that a short way from their farm was a large stone, whereupon was
always sitting a bird which could both understand and speak the tongue of men.
It would be best for them, he went on, to find this bird; but there was a
difficulty in the matter to be got over first, for many had gone there but
none had ever returned. He said that many king's children had gone to this
bird in order to know their future fate, but they had all come short in the
very thing needed. He told them that whosoever wanted to mount the stone must
be so steady as never to look back, whatever he might hear or see, or whatever
wonders seemed to take place around the rock. All who did not succeed in this
were changed into stones, together with everything they had with them. This
steadiness no one had had yet, but whosoever had it could easily mount the
rock, and having once done so would be able to quicken all the others who have
been turned to stone there. For the top of the rock was flat, and there was a
trap-door on it, wherein the bird was sitting. Underneath the trap-door was
water, the nature of which was that it would turn all the stones back to life
again. The old man ended by saying, "Now he who succeeds in getting to the top
is allowed by the bird to take the water and sprinkle the stone-changed folk,
and call them to life again, just as they were before." This the king's
children thought no hard task. The brothers, however, were the most outspoken
about the easiness of the thing. They thanked the old man much for his story
and took leave of him.
Not long after this, Vilhjámr, the eldest brother, went to the rock. But
before he left he said to his brother, that if three drops of blood should
fall on his knife at table while he was away, Sigurdr should at once come to
the rock, for then it would be sure that he fared like the others. So Vilhjámr
went away, following the old man's directions, and nothing further is told of
him for a while. But after three days, or about the time when his brother
should have reached the stone, three drops of blood fell upon Sigurdr's knife,
once, while at table. He was startled at this and told his sister that he must
needs leave her, in order to help his brother. He made the same agreement with
his sister as Vilhjámr had before made with him. Then he went away, and, to
make the story short, all came to the same issue with him as with his brother,
and the blood-drops fell on his sister's knife, at the time when Sigurdr
should have reached the stone.
Then the damsel went herself, to see what luck she might have. She succeeded
in finding the rock, and when she came there she was greatly struck with the
number of stones that surrounded it, in every shape and position. Some had the
form of chests, others of various animals, while some again were in other
forms. She paid no heed to all this, but going straight forward to the great
rock began climbing it. Then she heard, all of a sudden, behind her a loud
murmur of human voices, all talking, one louder than another, and amongst the
number she heard those of her brothers. But she paid no heed to this, and took
good care never to look back, in spite of all she heard going on behind her.
Then she got at last to the top of the rock, and the bird greatly praised her
steadiness and constancy and promised both to tell her anything she chose to
ask him and to assist her in every way he could. First, she would have the
surrounding stones recalled to their natural shapes and life. This the bird
granted her, pointing to one of the stones and saying, "Methinks you would
free that one from his spell, if you knew who he was." So the king's daughter
sprinkled water over all the stones and they returned to life again, and
thanked her for their release with many fair words. Next she asked the bird
who were the parents of herself and her brothers, and to whom they might trace
their descent. The bird said that they were the children of the king of that
country, and told her how the queen's sisters had acted by them at their
birth, and last of all told her how her mother was in the lion's den, and how
she was nearer dead than alive from sorrow and want of good food and comfort.
The stone which the bird had pointed out to the princess was a king's son, as
noble as he was handsome. He cast affectionate looks to his life-giver and it
was plain that each loved the other. It was he who had brought the greater
part of the chest-shaped stones thither, the which were coffers full of gold
and jewels. When the bird had told to every one that which each wanted to
know, all the company of the disenchanted scattered, the three children and
the wealthy prince going together. When they came home the first thing they
did was to break into the lion's den. They found their mother lying in a
swoon, for she had lost her senses on hearing the house broken into. They took
her away, and she soon afterwards recovered. Then they dressed her in fitting
attire, and taking her to the palace asked audience of the king. This granted,
Vilhjámr, Sigurdr, and their sister declared to the king that they were his
children and that they had brought with them their mother from the lion's den.
The king was amazed at this story and at all that had happened. The sisters of
the queen were sent for and questioned, and, having got into scrapes by
differing in accounts, confessed at last their misdeed and told the truth.
They were thrown before the same lion that the queen had been given to, and it
tore them to pieces immediately and ate them up, hair and all.
Now the queen took her former rank, and a banquet was held in joy at this
happy turn of affairs, and for many days the palace resounded with the glee of
the feast. And at the end of it the foreign prince wooed the king's daughter
and gained easily her hand, and thus the banquet was begun afresh and became
the young people's marriage-feast. Such glee has never been witnessed in any
other kingdom. After the feast the strange prince returned to his home with
his bride and became king after his father. Vilhjámr also married and took the
kingdom after his father. Sigurdr married a king's daughter abroad, and became
king after the death of his father-in-law; and all of them lived in luck and
prosperity. And now is the story ended.
From bleak Iceland to sunny India is certainly a "far cry," but we had already
got half-way thither in citing the Egypto-Arabian versions, and then turned
westwards and northwards. We must now, however, go all the way to Bengal for
our next form of the story, which is much simpler in construction than any of
the foregoing versions, and may be considered as a transition stage of the
tale in its migration to Europe. This is an abridgment of the story--not of
Envious Sisters but of jealous co-wives--from the Rev. Lal Bahari Day's
"Folk-Tales of Bengal,''[FN#434] a work of no small value to students of the
genealogy of popular fictions: