Yiddish Folktales Read online

  “What is it you wish, my children?” asked the man.

  After hearing their story, the man said, “If you want to know where the king’s lost daughter is, you’ll have to swear by these black candles that you will never tell anyone I am here.”

  They swore by the black candles. Then he said, “Refill the hole and drive on until you come to a bridge. Under the bridge you’ll find a golden rod. Swing the rod first to the right and then to the left. A road will appear before you, and you’ll see a glass mountain in the distance. A horse will be standing on the summit of the glass mountain. One of you must mount the steed and shut your eyes. The horse will run so fast that the rider will feel that his flesh is being torn from his body, but he must keep his eyes closed or else he’ll fall down from the mountain.”

  The boys ascended from the cellar, refilled the hole, and rode off, along with the rabbi.

  They came to the bridge and found the golden rod. The rabbi swung it back and forth, and a road opened before them leading to a glass mountain with a horse standing at the top. When they came close to the horse, the fisherman’s son said to the prince, “You mount the horse.”

  But the prince replied, “I’m scared. You do it.”

  The fisherman’s son climbed on the horse and shut his eyes, then felt himself flying with the speed of the wind. Finally the horse came to a stop beside a hut, and the youth dismounted. Through the window of the hut he saw the princess tied to a bed, while a red-hot oven glowed. And he saw a witch getting ready to throw the princess into the fiery oven. Without a moment’s thought, he leaped into the room and so surprised the witch that he was able to kill her very quickly with his sword.

  He flung the witch’s body out of the hut, and it tumbled down the mountain and fell at the feet of the young prince, who was waiting there. The prince thought that it was the king’s daughter, and that the fisherman’s son had killed her. He grabbed the body, mounted his horse, and flew like the wind back to the Polish king.

  Since the bloody corpse was unrecognizable, everyone believed the German prince. So the Polish king sent a troop of soldiers off to find the fisherman’s son and take vengeance for the death of his daughter.

  Meanwhile the fisherman’s son untied the Polish princess and rode with her and the rabbi toward her father’s castle. As they approached it, they saw a troop of soldiers coming to meet them. The rabbi said to the fisherman’s son, “The German king’s son must have accused you of killing the princess.”

  When the soldiers surrounded him, the fisherman’s son revealed the princess to them and shouted, “This is the real princess!” And when the princess’s face was washed, everyone could see that he told the truth.

  The German king’s son said, “She belongs to us both, because we both searched for her.”

  So it was decided that all three of them would lie in the same bed that night, and in the morning the princess would marry the youth whom she was found to be facing.

  That evening there was a great banquet to celebrate the return of the king’s lost daughter. Everyone ate and drank deeply—everyone but the fisherman’s son, who took various good things and put them into his pockets.

  When night fell, both youths and the princess went to sleep in one bed. The scent of chocolate and the other sweet things he had in his pockets wafted from the fisherman’s son. But the German king’s son gave off a fearful smell of drunkenness. Finally the princess couldn’t stand it and turned her face toward the sweet-smelling fisherman’s son. And when morning came, she was found pressed close against him, facing him.

  And so they were married, and the German king’s son was killed because he had tried to kill the fisherman’s son.

  40

  The Magic Fish and the Wishing Ring

  Once upon a time there was a childless king. Above everything he wanted to beget a child who would rule his kingdom when he was gone, but neither doctors nor magicians had been able to help him.

  The king heard of a certain rare fish in such-and-such a river, and any woman who ate even a morsel of this fish would conceive a child. He sent at once for the royal fisherman and gave him four weeks to catch it. “If you bring me the fish, I will make you my viceroy,” the king said. “If you fail, I will have you beheaded.”

  The royal fisherman went to the river eagerly, for he too was childless. And oh, what a catching of fish there was! At first he caught a big fish, then little ones. And each time he caught a fish, he examined it closely, but it was never the one he sought. At the end of two weeks he was catching no more fish, only worms and more worms.

  Three and then four weeks were up and there was not even a worm left in the river. The fisherman was in despair when suddenly he heard a great splash. Turning, he saw a man standing in the water and holding a live fish. “Here is what you’re looking for,” said the man, who, of course, was Satan. “I’ll let you have it on the condition that when he is thirteen years old, you’ll give me the boy your wife will conceive after she has eaten some of this fish.”

  Without hesitation, the fisherman pledged to give the boy over Then, carrying the fish, he hurried to the king.

  There was a great banquet, where the fish was served, and at which the king appointed the fisherman as his viceroy. And all the women who ate the fish, and whose husbands came to them that night, did conceive children.

  Nine months later the queen gave birth to a daughter while the viceroy’s wife gave birth to a son. The two children were raised together and startled everyone with their learning and talent. When they were not yet grown they became engaged, and it was generally agreed that after the king died, the two of them would rule the kingdom.

  But the viceroy, the former fisherman, remembered what he had promised the man in the river and grew sadder with the years. One day when his son was twelve, the boy said, “Father, what is troubling you? Don’t spare me, I can endure it.”

  So the viceroy revealed the truth about his pledge. “So be it, if it is my destiny,” the boy said calmly. “But get me a boat, Father, and leave the rest to me.”

  When the day came that they were to separate, they went together to the riverbank and the son stepped into the boat his father had provided. Then the viceroy called out, “Satan, take what is yours and grant that I have fulfilled my pledge.”

  With a great splash Satan appeared. He acknowledged that the pledge had been met and turned to snatch the boat, but the son was such a skilled helmsman that he eluded Satan. They began a chase near and far, downriver and into the ocean, the devil almost but never quite catching the boy. At last Satan, exhausted, spat after the boat and sent it scudding across the sea to the edge of the world.

  The vessel was cast up on the shore of a river, where the viceroy’s son stepped out. For three days he wandered; on the fourth he came to a large city. He went into various houses, but they were all empty. He concluded, then, that there must be a council meeting in the king’s court, and he walked down the main avenue till he came to the royal palace. Here too nobody was to be seen. He looked about and his eyes fell upon a tablet inscribed with these words:

  Just as East

  May not meet West,

  Just so it is

  Impossible that here

  A human can appear.

  And yet, should one

  By some strange luck

  Find his way here,

  Then let him knock

  Three times

  With a hammer

  On the anvil he’ll find

  In the large third chamber.

  The viceroy’s son followed the instructions. After the third blow on the anvil, a crowd of people seemed to start up out of the ground. They all filed by and bowed to him, crying, “Greetings to our liberator!”

  When the queen came by, she explained that the people had, in the course of a war, been bewitched by their enemy and condemned to live underground. But now that he had broken the spell, he would be crowned king of this land.

  And a few days later, th
at’s what happened. He became king of the people he had freed, and in time he married their former queen and thus made her a queen again. He ruled happily for a long while, but then he began to think, “What have I got here? A king’s throne? I could have had that at home. I would have married the princess and become a king, and I would have brought happiness to my parents in the bargain.” And it struck him, too, that people at home must be mourning for him.

  The queen noticed his unhappiness and said, “What’s making you so gloomy?”

  He told her, and she said, “If you really want to see your family and friends, I can arrange it. Here,” she said, giving him a ring. “You have only to put this on and say, ‘Take me to the land of my birth,’ and it will take you there at once.

  “But once there, you must tell no one about our country. If you do, dreadful things will happen to you.”

  “I promise,” he said. And with that he put on the ring and gave the order, “Take me to the land of my birth.”

  Away he flew, and in an instant he was at home. Everyone was so glad to see him that a holiday was declared, during which the viceroy’s son got so drunk that he forgot his promise to his queen. “In that other country,” he bragged, “my wife is so beautiful that if you were to see her, your eyes would be dazzled. And … and … not only my wife … my cook, if she were here, would be the most beautiful woman in the land.”

  The king said, “Brag away. Talk is cheap. How do we know that you’re telling the truth?”

  “You want proof?” said the viceroy’s son. “I’ll give you proof.” With that he put the ring on his finger and cried, “Bring me my wife and my cook.”

  And there, standing in the doorway of the banquet hall, stood his wife and his cook from that other country, and their beauty did indeed dazzle the people. No one, including her husband, noticed the displeasure behind his queen’s smile.

  A day or two later the viceroy’s son was strolling in the countryside with his wife and cook. At a grassy knoll they sat down to rest, and the two women poured a glass of wine for him. The young man, expecting no evil, drank and fell instantly into a deep sleep.

  Then the queen and the cook took away his clothes, the magic ring, and all signs of his identity. Leaving him sleeping on the grass, they disappeared forever.

  When he woke and saw what had happened, he was too ashamed to go back into town. A kindly peasant gave him some old clothes, and for a year or two he wandered from town to town.

  One day as he was traveling through a forest, he came upon three foolish brothers quarreling over an inheritance that consisted of a saddle that could seat seven people, a whip that could lash out of its own accord, and a piece of cloth that could make anyone invisible. “Why don’t you let me help you?” the young man said. “Give me the saddle, the whip, and the cloth and I’ll divide them in a way that will please you all.”

  “Very well,” the three fools said, and gave him their inheritance. He seated himself in the saddle and, seizing the whip, cried, “Hey, brothers, can you still see me?”

  “Yes,” they replied.

  “In that case,” he shouted, “Saddle, carry me home. Whip, strike. Cloth, cover me.” The whip struck at the brothers, the cloth made him invisible, and away he went until he was back in his home town. There he wrapped the saddle and the whip in the cloth and walked about.

  Great crowds of people thronged the streets. The viceroy’s son stopped a passerby and asked, “What’s going on?”

  “Where are you from? Why, the smallest child in town knows that the old king and queen are dead and we’re having a wedding and crowning a new king today. Our queen was to have married the viceroy’s son, but he disappeared.”

  When the viceroy’s son heard this, he wrapped himself in the magic cloth and went at once to the coronation. The queen appeared leading her husband-to-be, who was about to be crowned when the invisible viceroy’s son cried to his whip, “Whip, give him fifty lashes.” Before everyone’s eyes the whip set about beating the would-be king. Then the viceroy’s son cried, “On, Whip. Give the queen fifty strokes!” And the whip turned on the queen, who wept and begged, “Whoever is beating me, please show yourself.”

  The viceroy’s son threw off the magic cloak and the queen exclaimed, “It’s him—he is the true king,” and fell to the ground in a faint.

  When she recovered, she and the viceroy’s son were married, and he was crowned king with great joy on all sides.

  41

  The Hunchbacks and the Dancing Demons

  There were a couple of hunchbacked brothers who lived in the same village, but they did not get along. They were always mocking each other, quarreling, making each other’s lives miserable. But you could cheer either one up by telling him that the other’s hump was bigger.

  One of the brothers was meaner and more spiteful than the other. At last the other, feeling that his bad-tempered brother was shortening his days, decided to leave the village. He gathered together such rags as he had—an old shirt, a pair of trousers, some scraps of cloth for his feet—and put them in a sack. With the sack over his humped shoulder and a stick in his hand, he started off one morning at dawn.

  He traveled from village to village, from town to town, from city to city. He wandered through woods and over fields, till one day he was forced by bad weather to spend the night in an open field. He was lonely there all by himself, but what else could he do?

  Then, in the distance, he saw the protruding tip of a roof. He walked toward it and found that it was an abandoned hut, so he went inside. It had a broken-down bed with a bit of littered straw for a mattress, and putting his sack down, he flung himself on it and went to sleep.

  Toward midnight he was awakened by a loud noise. Opening his eyes, he saw a crowd of carousing demons making a great racket. As they beat a drum and danced about, they stuck out their tongues, squealed, whistled, and howled.

  All at once they came upon the hunchback. They hauled him out of bed and made him join their circle. He danced about with a will, making the same strange cries, and this pleased them very much.

  Everyone danced until it was almost one o’clock in the morning. Then the chief of the demons said, “You’re a great fellow; we’d like you to visit us again. And to make sure you come back, we want you to leave us a pledge.”

  The hunchback offered them his shirt and trousers, but they said, “No, we don’t want them.” He offered his sack, but still they said, “No.”

  “What can I give you?” he asked. “I haven’t got anything else except my hump.”

  “That’s it!” cried the chief of the demons. “Your hump. Now, that’s undamaged goods. There’s a pledge we can accept.” Then all the demons formed a circle around the hunchback, though when he looked around a moment later, nobody was there. And not only were the demons gone, but when the hunchback touched his shoulder he found that his hump was gone too.

  The former hunchback, his head held high and his shoulders thrown back, strode through the streets of his village. He was met by his mean-tempered brother, who looked him over and said, “Where have you left your hump?”

  The other described all that had happened—the hut and the demons and the dancing. “And that,” he concluded, “is how I got rid of the hump.”

  “Where’s the hut?” the mean hunchback asked eagerly.

  His brother provided instructions on which paths and trails to take, and the hunchback started off. He walked on and on until at last he came to the hut. There he found the bed littered with straw, just as his brother had described it. He too went to sleep and, just at twelve o’clock, the demons arrived and began their dance. There were the same strange cries, the drumming and whistling, the tapping of feet, just as he had been told.

  This time too the demons took the hunchback into their circle, and he danced along with them, matching their cries. They were delighted with him. A few minutes before one o’clock, when their carousing was ended, the chief of the demons said, “You’re an honorable f
ellow. You kept your word and came back to us, so now we want to return your pledge.”

  With that he gave the other demons a signal, and they formed a circle around the mean hunchback. And when they found that he already had a hump on his back, they stuck the pledged hump on his chest, so now he had two.

  42

  The Princess of the Third Pumpkin

  Once upon a time there were a king and queen who had an only son. When he was eighteen years old, they sent for him and said, “Dear son, it’s time for you to be married.” And the son replied, “If you find a bride for me, I’ll gladly marry.” The king ordered the most beautiful maidens of the country to be brought before the prince, but the young man was not pleased with any of them. So the king proclaimed that anyone who could procure a bride for his son would be richly rewarded.

  An old woman came to the palace and said, “Lord king, I have a maiden for you who is unique in all the world.”

  “Let’s see her,” said the king.

  The old woman said, “Let the prince get up at dawn. Let him put on his coat and take his knife and a bottle of water, and let him go into the king’s garden. There he will see three pumpkins growing on a single vine. Let him take his knife and cut one off. The most beautiful princess in the world will emerge from it. Let him give her water to drink and she will at once be willing to be his bride.”

  The king thanked her and commanded that she be given a place in the little hut in the courtyard that was near the royal kitchen. Then the king called his son and told him what he had to do to get a bride. The prince followed the king’s instructions: He got up at dawn and put on his coat. He took along his knife and a bottle of water and went into the royal garden. There he saw three pumpkins growing on a single vine. He took his knife and cut one off. A naked princess as lovely as a sunrise stepped out of the pumpkin and cried, “A drink, a drink, a drink!” But the princess escaped before the prince could give her water from his bottle. So he cut a second pumpkin from the vine, and again a beautiful naked princess stepped out. She cried, “Oh, a drink, a drink, a drink!” But before the prince could give her water, she escaped. So the prince cut the third pumpkin from the vine, and from it stepped a naked princess, uniquely beautiful in all the world, who cried, “Oh, a drink, a drink, a drink!” And the prince quickly put his bottle to her lips and she drank her fill and stayed.