“Take these eggs to your daughter, and tell her to hatch chickens out
of them, and I will reward her handsomely; but if she cannot hatch
them, it will go ill with you.”
The poor man went crying back to his hovel, and related to his daughter
what had passed. The maiden saw at once that the eggs had been boiled,
but she told her father to go to rest, and assured him that she would
see that all went well. The father followed her advice, and went to
sleep; the maiden took a pot, filled it with water and beans, and set
it on the fire. On the following morning, the beans being quite boiled,
she told her father to take a plow and oxen, and to plow along the road
where the king would pass.
“And,” she added, “when you see the king, take the beans, sow them, and
cry, ‘Hi! go on, oxen mine! Heaven be with me, and make my boiled beans
take root and grow!’ And when the king asks you how it is possible for
boiled beans to grow, answer him, that it is quite as possible as for
boiled eggs to yield chickens.”
The poor man hearkened to his daughter, went away, and began to plow.
When he saw the king coming he began to cry—
“Hi, go on, oxen mine! God help me, and make my boiled beans take root
and grow!”
The king, hearing these words, stopped on the road, and said to the
poor man—
“Here, fellow! how is it possible for boiled beans to grow?”