They say there was once a merchant who, when he was going out to buy
rare merchandise, asked his daughter what rich present he should
bring home to her. She, however, would hear of nothing but only a
simple rose-tree.
'That,' said her father, 'is too easy. However, as you are bent on
having a rose-tree, you shall have the most beautiful rose-tree I
can find in all my travels.'
In all his travels, however, he met with no rose-tree that he deemed
choice enough. But one day, when he was walking outside the walls of
his own city, he came to a garden which he had never observed before,
filled with all manner of beautiful flowers.
'This is a wonderful garden indeed,' said the merchant to himself; 'I
never saw it before, and yet these luxuriant plants seem to have many
years' growth in them. There must be something wonderful about them,
so this is just the place to look for my daughter's rose-tree.' In
he went therefore to look for the rose-tree.
In the midst of the garden was a casino, the door of which stood open;
when he went in he found a banquet spread with the choicest dishes;
and though he saw no one, a kind voice invited him to sit down and
enjoy himself. So he sat down to the banquet, and very much he did
enjoy himself, for there was everything he could desire. [95]
When he had well eaten and drunk, he bethought him to go out again
into the garden and seek a choice rose-tree.
'As the banquet was free,' he thought to himself, 'I suppose the
flowers are free too.'
So he selected what seemed to him the choicest rose of all; while
it had petals of the richest red in the world, within it was all
shining gold, and the leaves too were overlaid with shining gold. This
rose-tree, therefore, he proceeded to root up.
A peal of thunder attended the attempt, and with a noise of rushing
winds and waters a hideous monster [96] suddenly appeared before him.
'How dare you root up my rose-trees?' said the monster; 'was it not
enough that I gave you my best hospitality freely? Must you also rob
me of my flowers, which are as my life to me? Now you must die!'
The merchant excused himself as best he could, saying it was the very
freedom of the hospitality which had emboldened him to take the rose,
and that he had only ventured to take it because he had promised the
prettiest rose-tree he could find to his daughter.
'Your daughter, say you?' replied the monster. 'If there is a daughter
in the case perhaps I may forgive you; but only on condition that
you bring her hither to me within three days' time.'
The father went home sad at heart, but within three days he kept his
promise of taking his daughter to the garden. The monster received
them very kindly, and gave them the casino to live in, where they were
well fed and lodged. At the end of eight days, however, a voice came
to the father and told him he must depart; and when he hesitated to
leave his daughter alone he was taken by invisible agency and turned
out of the garden.
The monster now often came and talked to the daughter, and he was
so gentle and so kind that she began quite to like him. One day she
asked him to let her go home and see her friends, and he, who refused
her nothing, let her go; but begged her to promise solemnly she would
come back at the end of eight days, 'for if you are away longer than
that,' he added, 'I know I shall die of despair.' Then he gave her
a mirror into which she could look and see how he was.
Thus she went home, and the time passed quickly away, and eight days
were gone and she had not thought of returning. Then by accident the
mirror came under her hand, and, looking into it, she saw the monster
stretched on the ground as if at the point of death. The sight filled
her with compunction, and she hurried back with her best speed.
Arrived at the garden, she found the monster just as she had seen him
in the mirror. At sight of her he revived, and soon became so much
better that she was much touched when she saw how deeply he cared
for her.
'And were you really so bad only because I went away?' she asked.
'No, not only because you went away, for it was right you should go
and see your parents; but because I began to fear you would never
come back, and if you had never come back I should quite have died.'
'And now you are all right again?'
'Yes, now you are here I am quite happy; that is, I should be quite
happy if you would promise always to remain and never go away any
more.'
Then when she saw how earnest and sincere he was in wishing her to
stay, she gave her consent never to leave him more.
No sooner had she spoken the promise than in the twinkling of an eye
all was changed. The monster became a handsome prince, the casino a
palace, the garden a flourishing country, and each several rose-tree
a city. For the prince had been enchanted by an enemy, and had to
remain transformed as a monster till he should be redeemed by the
love of a maiden.
[The three brothers who occupy so large a space in the household tales
of other countries, do not seem to be popular favourites in Rome. I
have come across them but seldom. There are plenty of them in the
'Norse Tales,' under the name of 'Boots' for the unexpectedly doughty
brother. The Spanish romance I have given as 'Simple Johnny and the
Spell-bound Princesses,' in 'Patrañas,' makes him a knight. In the
Siddhi Kür story of 'How the Schimnu Khan was Slain,' it is three
hired companions (as in some other versions), who betray the hero;
and in all but this (which is its link with the usual Three-brother
stories), it is a remarkably close repetition of the details of another
Spanish romance, which I have given as 'The Ill-tempered Princess,'
and this, in its turn, is like the Tirolean 'Laxhale's Wives' and
the Roman 'Diavolo che prese moglie.' Compare, further, a number of
instances collected by Mr. Ralston, pp. 72-80, and 260-7. In many
parts of Tirol you meet a Three-brother story different from any of
these. Three brothers go out to hunt chamois on a Sunday morning,
and get so excited with the sport that they make themselves too
late to hear Mass, and get turned into stone, or some other dreadful
punishment. The younger brother, who has all along urged them to go
down, but has been overruled by the others, is involved in the same
punishment. There are three peaks on the Knie Pass, leading from
Tirol to Salzburg, called 'The Three Brothers,' from such a legend.]