Once upon a time there lived an emperor whose name was Trojan, and he
had ears like a goat. Every morning, when he was shaved, he asked if the
man saw anything odd about him, and as each fresh barber always replied
that the emperor had goat’s ears, he was at once ordered to be put to
death.
Now after this state of things had lasted a good while, there was hardly
a barber left in the town that could shave the emperor, and it came
to be the turn of the Master of the Company of Barbers to go up to the
palace. But, unluckily, at the very moment that he should have set out,
the master fell suddenly ill, and told one of his apprentices that he
must go in his stead.
When the youth was taken to the emperor’s bedroom, he was asked why he
had come and not his master. The young man replied that the master was
ill, and there was no one but himself who could be trusted with the
honour. The emperor was satisfied with the answer, and sat down, and let
a sheet of fine linen be put round him. Directly the young barber began
his work, he, like the rest, remarked the goat’s ears of the emperor,
but when he had finished and the emperor asked his usual question as
to whether the youth had noticed anything odd about him, the young man
replied calmly, ‘No, nothing at all.’ This pleased the emperor so much
that he gave him twelve ducats, and said, ‘Henceforth you shall come
every day to shave me.’
So when the apprentice returned home, and the master inquired how he had
got on with the emperor, the young man answered, ‘Oh, very well, and
he says I am to shave him every day, and he has given me these twelve
ducats’; but he said nothing about the goat’s ears of the emperor.
From this time the apprentice went regularly up to the palace, receiving
each morning twelve ducats in payment. But after a while, his secret,
which he had carefully kept, burnt within him, and he longed to tell it
to somebody. His master saw there was something on his mind, and asked
what it was. The youth replied that he had been tormenting himself
for some months, and should never feel easy until some one shared his
secret.
‘Well, trust me,’ said the master, ‘I will keep it to myself; or, if you
do not like to do that, confess it to your pastor, or go into some field
outside the town and dig a hole, and, after you have dug it, kneel down
and whisper your secret three times into the hole. Then put back the
earth and come away.’
The apprentice thought that this seemed the best plan, and that very
afternoon went to a meadow outside the town, dug a deep hole, then knelt
and whispered to it three times over, ‘The Emperor Trojan has goat’s
ears.’ And as he said so a great burden seemed to roll off him, and he
shovelled the earth carefully back and ran lightly home.
Weeks passed away, and there sprang up in the hole an elder tree which
had three stems, all as straight as poplars. Some shepherds, tending
their flocks near by, noticed the tree growing there, and one of them
cut down a stem to make flutes of; but, directly he began to play, the
flute would do nothing but sing: ‘The Emperor Trojan has goat’s ears.’
Of course, it was not long before the whole town knew of this wonderful
flute and what it said; and, at last, the news reached the emperor in
his palace. He instantly sent for the apprentice and said to him:
‘What have you been saying about me to all my people?’
The culprit tried to defend himself by saying that he had never told
anyone what he had noticed; but the emperor, instead of listening, only
drew his sword from its sheath, which so frightened the poor fellow
that he confessed exactly what he had done, and how he had whispered the
truth three times to the earth, and how in that very place an elder tree
had sprung up, and flutes had been cut from it, which would only repeat
the words he had said. Then the emperor commanded his coach to be made
ready, and he took the youth with him, and they drove to the spot, for
he wished to see for himself whether the young man’s confession was
true; but when they reached the place only one stem was left. So the
emperor desired his attendants to cut him a flute from the remaining
stem, and, when it was ready, he ordered his chamberlain to play on it.
But no tune could the chamberlain play, though he was the best flute
player about the court--nothing came but the words, ‘The Emperor Trojan
has goat’s ears.’ Then the emperor knew that even the earth gave up its
secrets, and he granted the young man his life, but he never allowed him
to be his barber any more.
(Volksmarchen der Serben.)