“Tell it to me, and I will faithfully keep it from everybody else; or
if you fear to trust me with it, then go to the confessor and confide
it to him; but if you will not do even that, then go into the fields
outside the town, there dig a hole, thrust your head into it, and tell
the earth three times what you know, then throw the mold in again and
fill up the hole.”
The apprentice chose the last course; went into the field outside the
city, dug a hole, into which he thrust his head, and called out three
times—
“The Emperor Trojan has goat’s ears.”
Then he filled up the hole again, and with his mind quite relieved went
home.
When some time had passed by, there sprang an elder tree out of this
very hole, and three slender sterns grew up, beautiful and straight as
tapers. Some shepherds found this elder, cut off one of the stems, and
made a pipe of it. But as soon as they began to blow into the new pipe,
out burst the words:
“The Emperor Trojan has goat’s ears!”
The news of this strange occurrence spread immediately through the
whole city, and at last the Emperor Trojan himself heard the children
blowing on a pipe:
“The Emperor Trojan has goat’s ears!”