The Lazy Threesome

An old king, with death approaching, remembered that he had not yet decided to which of his three sons he would leave his kingdom. As he thought about this, he realised that there was only one thing which they knew how to do well, and that was nothing! So he decided he would leave his throne on the son who was best of all at doing nothing. He called the three princes to him and began to question them.

‘I am so lazy,’ said the first, ‘what if a grain of dust lands in my eye while I am falling asleep, rather than go to the effort of getting it out, I prefer to forget about sleeping and remain all night with my eyes open,’

‘Ah but if I,’ said the second prince, ‘should sit near the fire to warm myself, why, rather than tax myself by moving my feet, I let them get burnt by the flames.’

‘I am so lazy,’ boasted the third prince at this point, ‘that if I were being hung and I was given a knife to cut the rope, I would let myself strangle to death, rather than make the effort of raising my hand.’

‘That really is astonishing!’ thought the old king. ‘You couldn’t get lazier that that! The throne is yours!’ he said, turning to the third and laziest of the three princes.

The Magic Fish Bone

Once upon a time there was a man who had twelve children, but was not able to give them enough to eat. Alice, the obedient and hard working eldest daughter, became very thin, and it was, perhaps, for this reason that the Sea Fairy took pity on her and brought her a gift of a sardine, telling her to be sure to keep the bone after she had eaten the fish. ‘It is a magic fish bone,’ the Sea Fairy told Alice, ‘and it will grant you one wish, but only one. So be sure to use it wisely.’

Alice was tempted on many occasions to use her magic fish bon; when one of her brothers was ill; when her sister was lost; but he always managed to put she always managed to put things right by herself, without resorting to the magic.

One day, however, Alice found her father in desperate poverty: he had no money left at all. ‘Is there no way to find any money?’ she asked, worriedly. ‘No, I have already done every thing possible!’ her father replied, sadly. ‘Well, then, if there really is no other answer….,’ and the young girl put her hand in her pocket and stroked the fish bone.

The Sea Fairy appeared and at once set about resolving all their problems: she even managed to find a handsome young man who married Alice, so that she never again felt the need to use the services of a magic fish bone!

The Wolf and the Shepherd

A certain wolf got into the habit of following a flock of sheep without ever attacking any of them. As a result, after some time the shepherd began to think of the wolf as more of a guardian than an enemy. One day the shepherd had to go to the city on business, and it seemed natural for him to leave his flock in the care of the wolf.

When he returned that evening, every single one of his sheep had been killed. The shepherd thought long and hard over what had happened, and, in the end, realised that it was completely his own fault: whoever puts his faith in wicked friends should expect no better.

The Lucky Snowdrop

Somehow a ray of sunlight penetrated the snow on the ground and the flower, hidden underneath, thought that the spring had come. It stretched up, lengthening its stem as far as it could, and made a little hole in the icy roof, so that it could peek out at the world.

Oh dear! It had made a terrible mistake. It was still winter. Everyone laughed at the silly snowdrop, which would have died from the cold if a little boy had not picked it and taken it home. The snowdrop was put in a vase of water in a warm room, and it felt like a king.

Not long after, the little boy’s big sister took the flower from the vase and put it in an envelope with a letter. The snowdrop would not read, but it somehow knew that the words in the letter were beautiful. After a long and uncomfortable journey in a bag with other letters and packages, the snowdrop found itself lifted gently out of the envelop by a young man who put the flower to his lips and gave it a loving kiss.

The young man became a great poet who remembered the lovely snowdrop in his poems, and it became famous. So, even though it might have been rather silly, it was still a lucky snowdrop

The Lute-Playing Queen

During the Crusades, the tsar was taken prisoner by the Turks. He wrote at once to his wife, asking her to pay the ransom demanded for his freedom, but he heard nothing.

One day, sometime later, a lute-player arrived at the sultan’s palace. He played so brilliantly that the sultan insisted he stay at the palace as a quest, and the finally offered him anything in his kingdom as payment. The lute-player asked to take away the tsar as his leave, and the sultan kept his promise.

They journeyed a long way, and when at last they were near the capital city of the whole of Russia, the lute-player suddenly freed his new slave and, without saying another word, disappeared.

At court, the unexpected return of the tsar caused great joy and excitement. The only unhappy aspect was that the tsar refused to see his wife. ‘She didn’t even bother to pay the ransom to free me from captivity.’ He sighed.

The tsar was about to condemn his uncaring queen to death, when he heard the gentle strains of a lute and the mysterious musician reappeared. At last, the tsar recognised his queen in her disguise, and realised that her cunning had freed him. Thus it was a day of great rejoicing for everyone.

The Cockerel and the Weathercock

Fixed to the roof of the farmhouse was one of those metal cocks which show which way the wind is blowing. This weathercock, so high above the other farmyard animals, was in a very good position to crow. Instead, he never made a sound.

The farmyard cockerel, on the other hand, was very proud of his red crest and his loud ‘cock-a-doodle-doos’. In fact, he liked boasting so much to the hens and the little chickens that he sometimes told very big lies.

‘Cockerel can lay eggs as well, you know,’ he said one day to the hens.

‘But they only ever lay one egg in their whole lives, Hah, but that one egg contains a dragon which is so terrifying that men die as soon as they set eyes on it. So you see, humans are very scared of us, and the real masters of the world are us cockerels, not men at all.’

Naturally the weathercock heard every word of this. He merely snorted. He had seen so many things and heard so many empty words in his long life that noting surprised him anymore. He knew very well that the cockerel’s boasts were nothing but hot air, but he felt so superior that he did not even bother to contradict him.

And, in the end, whether the cockerel of the weathercock was more important is a difficult question.

The Great Issumboshi

Issuboshi was a tiny Japanese man who was so small that he was really of no use at all at working in the fields. For this reason, his grandfather decided to send him to the city so that he might learn to become a valiant samurai warrior. As he was leaving, his grandfather gave him a wooden cup as a gift, to use a boat, his mother gave him two long grains of rice, to use as oars, and his father gave him a pin, to use as a sword.

The journey was full of dangers, especially when you consider that a frog was the size of an elephant next to little Issumboshi. However, the young man soon learnt how to look after himself, and, because of his great courage and intelligence, the arrived at the city safe and sound.

He found the streets deserted; everybody was cowering indoors for fear of a fierce giant who was terrorising the city. Issumboshi did not hesitate for a moment, and strode straight out to face this terrible enemy. Small as he was, he found it easy to avoid the monster’s clumsy blows. And he found it just as easy to sink his sword into the huge body, until the giant finally crashed to the ground, in agony from thousands of tiny wounds.

‘What a mighty warrior,’ shouted onlookers joyfully. Issumboshi felt taller than the giant.