ONCE UPON A TIME, a King found himself lost in a forest. Try as he might, he could not find his way out. As he was wandering down yet another path which had turned out to be as hopeless as the rest, a man with a long, gray beard came toward him.
The stranger said, “I will show you the way out if you promise that you will give me in one year the first thing that comes out of your house.”
“My dog is always first to greet me at the door,” thought the King. “I wouldn’t want to give up my dog. Still, the welfare of my kingdom depends on me and I must find my way home.” He turned to the stranger. “Very well, I accept your terms.” Scarcely had he uttered the words than he found himself at the great gates of his palace. Out rushed the nurse holding the royal baby, who stretched his arms to his father. The King, horrified, shrank back and ordered the nurse to take the baby back in the palace at once.
When the King considered the best way of handling the situation, he ordered his servants to scour the kingdom and find a peasant baby left unattended for a moment, then to quickly spirit the baby away and to leave in its stead a basket with his royal infant son inside.
You can imagine the distress of the peasant parents when their baby girl was gone! They cried and despaired, looking anywhere and everywhere and asking everyone they could find. Yet this mysterious infant son was left in their care, apparently. They could not help but grow to love this baby as they cared for and fed the infant.
Meanwhile the little peasant baby slept in a golden cradle under silken sheets. At the end of one year, the stranger arrived to claim his property and took away the baby girl, believing her to be the true child of the King.
The King was so delighted with the success of his plan that he sent splendid presents to the foster parents of his son so that they might lack for nothing. The peasant parents could not imagine where these gifts came from or why. They suspected the child must be a son of a noble family or even of royal birth, for its infant basket had been richly decorated and the infant’s dressing gown had been embroidered with gold.
By-and-by the boy grew up and seemed to lead a happy life, if a rough one, in the home of his foster parents, the peasant couple. But a shadow hung over him that really poisoned most of his pleasure, and that was the thought of the poor innocent girl who was raised without knowing her true, loving parents. What had become of her? For his foster parents had told him in secret that their baby girl was mysteriously taken away from them and replaced with him as the infant in a basket, and that in all likelihood he was of very high birth, perhaps even royalty.
The Prince determined that when he grew old enough he would travel all over the world, if that’s what it took, until he had found the girl who had been taken from her parents and reunite her with them.
Only after he found her and reunited her with her birth parent, would he even try to connect with his own family of high birth.
One day, wearing his usual peasant garb, he threw a sack of peas on his back and marched straight into the forest where 18 years before his father had lost himself. After the sun set and the woods grew dark, he felt the same worry his father had felt years before, and he began to cry loudly: “Oh, dear me! How unlucky I am! Is there no one to show me the way out of the wood?”
Then appeared a strange man with a long gray beard and a leather bag hanging from his girdle. He nodded cheerfully to the young man and said: “I know this place well, and can lead you out of it, if you will promise me a good reward.”
“What can a beggar such as I promise anyone?” answered the Prince.
“Why not enter my service? I need a sharp fellow in the house, and you please me well enough.”
“Why not indeed, if we can strike a bargain?” said the other. “For a peasant such as I, it is the same whomever I serve! What wages will you give me?”
“Every day fresh food, meat twice a week, butter and vegetables, your summer and winter clothes, and a portion of land for your own use,” replied the stranger.
“I can be satisfied with that,” said the youth. “I will go with you!” The old fellow spun round like a top and then set out with his companion, chattering so fast that he never noticed that his new servant kept dropping peas out of the back of his sack.
At night they slept under a fig tree. When the sun rose, they started on their way once more. About noon they came to a large stone, and here the old fellow stopped, looked carefully round, gave a sharp whistle, and stamped three times on the ground with his left foot. Suddenly there appeared under the stone a secret door that led to what looked like the mouth of a cave. The old fellow seized the youth by the arm, and said gruffly, “Follow me!”
Thick darkness surrounded them, and it seemed to the Prince as if their path in the cave led into still darker depths. The old graybeard uttered no word. When they had climbed past rocks that jutted up from the cave floor and that hung down from the cave ceiling, the Prince saw in the distance a light. Now the master said with a frown, “Watch carefully our ways in my house, and beware of making any mistake, or it will go ill with you. Keep your eyes and ears open, and your mouth shut, obey without questions. If you care to keep your head, never speak unless you are spoken to.”
When the Prince stepped over the threshold of the master’s house he caught sight of a young woman with brown eyes and long, curly hair. He watched her lay the table, bring in the food, and take her seat by the fire, as if she never noticed that a strange man was present.
After supper that night, the old man said to the Prince, “Tomorrow at dawn you start work. The maid will show you your quarters.”
The Prince thought that he had permission to speak, but his master turned on him with a face of thunder and shrieked, “You dog of a servant! If you disobey the laws of the house you will soon find yourself a head shorter! Hold your tongue and don’t forget it.”
The servant woman made a sign for him to follow her. Throwing open a door, she nodded for him to go in.
“It is impossible that this young servant is the daughter of this nasty, churlish man,” he said to himself, “for she has a kind heart. Could it be that she is the missing girl, stolen away from my foster parents? Whether she is or not, I must find a way to free her.” He got into bed but it was long before he fell asleep, and even then his dreams gave him no rest.
When he woke his first thoughts were for the girl, whom he found hard at work. To lighten her load, he drew water from the well, carried it to the house, kindled the fire under the iron pot, and in general, did everything that came to his head that could be of any use to her. Breakfast, dinner, and supper were as delicious as before.
The Prince would have been quite content with his quarters had it not been for the difficulty of keeping silence in the presence of the captive servant woman. This went on for two weeks. Then one evening the master told the Prince that he would have a special task for the next day.
The Prince was going to open his door to retire, when the servant glided past and whispered in his ear, “I overheard the master say he was giving you a special task for tomorrow. What are you to do?”
“It is really nothing at all,” answered the prince. “Just to cut hay for the horse, and to clean out his stall!”
“Oh, luckless being!” sighed she. “How will you ever get through with it? The white horse, who is our master’s grandmother, is always hungry. It takes twenty men always mowing to keep her in food for one day, and another twenty to clean out her stall. How then, do you expect to do it all by yourself? But listen to me, and do what I tell you. It is your only chance.”
“When you have filled the manger as full as it will hold,” she said, “you must weave a strong braid of the rushes which grow among the meadow, and cut a thick peg of stout wood. Be sure that the horse sees what you are doing. The horse will ask you what it is for, and then you must say, ‘With this braid I intend to bind up your mouth so that you cannot eat any more, and with this peg I am going to keep you still in one spot, so that you cannot scatter your corn and water all over the place!’ Remember what I’ve said.” After these words the young woman went away as softly as she had come.
Early the next morning he set to work. Soon he had enough hay to fill the manger. He put it in the crib, and returned with a second supply, when to his horror he found the crib empty. Then he knew that without the young woman’s advice he certainly would have been lost, and began to put it into practice. By mid-day there was still fodder in the manger, and the place was as clean as a pin. He had barely finished when in walked the old man, who stood astonished at the door.
The old man grumbled, “So you got it done. Harrumph.”
In the evening the servant woman came to him and asked, “How did the master react?”
When the Prince told her, the maiden became as white as a sheet. “Oh, no!” she cried. “The old man has found out that I advised you and he means to destroy us both. We must escape somehow, or else we shall be lost. Alas! How can we find the way out?”
The Prince remembered the peas, which must have sprouted by now. That would lead them both back to the entrance.
“Wonderful!” she cried. “Now listen. In the corner of the barn behind the black cow, you must split the wood walls. The black cow is sleeping now and you must take care not to wake her. Inside the walls you will see a bright red ball. Bring that to me. Meanwhile, I will do what is needed here.”
With one blow of his ax the Prince split the barn walls. In an instant the place was filled with light from the red ball. The Prince picked up the red ball and, before its brilliant light woke the black cow, wrapped it round with a thick cloth and hid it under his shirt. At the door stood the young servant woman, holding a little bundle in her arms.
“Do you have the ball?” she asked. He nodded.
“We must lose no time!” she said. She uncovered a tiny bit of the shining ball to light them on their way in the dark night.
As the Prince had expected, the peas had taken root and grown into a little hedge, so the two of them could easily follow the correct path.
As they fled, the young woman told him that she had once overheard a conversation between the old man and his grandmother, the white horse, saying that she was actually a King’s daughter who was stolen from her royal crib. At once, the Prince understood what must have happened. She must be the baby taken in his stead from the palace! He mourned her sad life, to have been stolen from her kind foster parents in the woods, only to be stolen yet again from the palace and then to know only a life of harsh servitude to the old man.
The Prince said nothing, though he rejoiced that he had found the one he sought, and that now he had a chance to set her free. So they escaped further and further through the cave.
The old man slept very late that morning. When he awoke, his two servants were nowhere to be found. He searched everywhere but only found an empty house. He went straight to the stable, where the sight of the smashed barn wall told him all. Swearing loudly, he cried to his goblin servants to go chase the fugitives. “Bring them to me, however you may find them, for have them I must!” he cried. So spoke the old man, and the servants fled like the wind.
The young woman and the Prince ran on and on. The cave was so dark that if it had not been for the light shed by the red ball, they could not have made their way at all. Worn out and breathless, they came at length to a large stone. Here the shining ball began to move restlessly.
The young woman, seeing the ball’s movement, exclaimed, “Listen to me, my ball. Please roll the stone quickly to one side that we may find the door.” And in a moment the stone had rolled away, and they had passed through the door to the world of fresh air again. The stone closed shut to cover the opening behind them.
“Now we are safe!” cried the young woman. “Here the old wizard has no more power over us, and we can guard ourselves from his spells. But my friend, now we must part! You will return to your parents, and I must find the royal palace where I was born, and the parents I haven’t known.” For you see, she still believed that she had been born a Princess and was stolen from the royal crib.
Neither one of them knew where the palace was, or how to find it. They approached a woodcutter to ask. The woodcutter gave them directions and what’s more, said that there remained a great sorrow in the palace since 18 years before, the royal infant Prince had disappeared. “Prince?” said the young woman in surprise. “Wasn’t it a baby Princess who was taken away as an infant?”
“Nay, my fair lady,” said the woodcutter.
Then the Prince gently revealed that in truth, he was the true Prince who as a baby had disappeared from the palace 18 years ago. That he had ended up raised by foster parents in the woods. And that she was born their baby but had been stolen to the palace, only to be captured there by the cruel master. The Prince told her he journeyed with the sole intent of finding her and bringing her back to her true home in the woods.
In one sense, the young woman felt a little disappointed that she was not born a Princess. Still, she was relieved to know her birth parents were kind and loving people, and had been yearning for her all these years.
With the help of the magic ball, she managed that the Prince become garbed in princely clothes so that he might greet his birth father, the King, in proper attire. They agreed that after he was reunited with the King, they would journey together to meet her true parents. When they approached the palace she stayed behind so that the King and his son could meet in private.
The King was in a sickbed – he had never recovered from the wrong he had committed years before of taking away the peasant family’s baby girl and giving her to the stranger, and then missing the chance to raise his own son.
When the King set eyes on his son, now fully grown, his heart overflowed with joy. He stood up, brimming with a strength he had not felt in years. When he learned that his son had taken it on himself to rescue the unfortunate girl who had replaced him in the royal cradle, his heart beamed with pride. The King insisted that the young woman be brought forth. The son and his companion shared all that had happened to them, and that they rejoiced to be free.
Of course, the young woman was anxious to meet her own parents. No doubt you can imagine how overjoyed the peasant mother and father were to see their long-lost daughter!
The Prince and the young woman had grown close during their adventures together, and over time grew even closer. The King and the foster parents, too, were forever inviting the two of them over for dinner and tea. The young people realized they wanted to stay together always, and before long they gladly got married.
The King, weak from many years of illness, died soon thereafter. The Prince and his bride became the King and Queen of the land. And so the baby girl stolen from the woods became Queen after all. In the years to come, the two of them ruled wisely and well, and they lived happily ever after.
