One king had a beautiful daughter, which was also very brave, braver than many men. But she didn’t agree to marry any of her suitors and the reason for this is because she had fallen in love in a prince of a distant land, who was foretold by a magician that if he marries while his father still lives, great troubles will befall him. So the prince waited and so did his princess, which, however, hadn’t told her father, since she was too proud.
The king was also very curious for another thing – each day he bought her a new pair of shoes and each morning they were already worn out. His daughter told him nothing, so he finally decreed to all the young men of the kingdom that if someone finds out where she goes at night and how she wears off all those shoes, he’ll give her for his wife. But there was also another condition – if someone tries, but fails, he’ll be put to death [after all, you can’t just have all the males of the kingdom wandering around in the palace, possibly wrecking the place, sabotaging or even spying (or simply voyeuring), can you?]. Many men tried – some waiting before the palace gates, others waiting before the princess’ chambers – but she somehow enchanted them all, they’d fall asleep and then get executed.
There was one tailor in town, who also came to guard the king’s daughter. The king laughed at him – “So many princes and nobles died, how would you keep her? But go – my dogs haven’t eaten since two-three days!”. Then the tailor went before the maiden’s chambers, wrapped his head with a leather apron, so he wouldn’t be enchanted by some sleeping smell, and pretended to be asleep.
As night fell down, the princess passed him by, poured a vial of enchanted water above him and went on. But the young man didn’t get affected by the sleeping potion and while she was pouring it upon him, he unnoticeably cut a small piece of her dress which he then hid in his bad. After that he started following her from a distance and around midnight they reached one sea. Then the princess took off her head-cloth, put it in the sea, stepped in it and the kerchief started sailing like a ship. The tailor looked after her for awhile, but he couldn’t do anything to follow her and as he started getting cold, he started looking for some shelter. Soon, however, he reached a place where he heard some people quarreling – it turned out it was three devils, arguing fiercely over the distribution of some loot. The tailor offered to act as an arbiter, so they told him they were arguing for a golden apple, a silver colander, a hat, a mace and a tub. But they were all magical items – whoever has the apple, gets as strong as nine people; if you put the hat on your head, you’ll instantly turn invisible; if you tell the tub “Come on, fill up!”, the tub would start pouring out gold coins until you tell it to stop; if you stand on the silver screen, it will take you across the sea faster than any ship; if you tell the mace “Crush this mountain”, it will do it. So the young man told them he’ll first roll the apple down a slope and whoever catches it, will keep it. He did so and the devils started running after it, while the man took all the other things, ran to the sea, put on the invisibility hat and instantly sailed across the sea with the silver riddle.
Just as he landed on the beach, the princess came with her sailing kerchief, but since the tailor wore the magical hat, she didn’t notice him and he followed her safely. Soon they reached a thick forest and the man broke off one branch and hid it in his bag. Not long after that they reached the prince’s palace, where the princess told him of her new silly keeper and then they started playing, throwing to each other back and forth a honey-cake, which the invisible tailor snatched and hid in his bag when it fell down on the floor. Then they sat down to drink rakia [note: rakia and spirits in general were invented quite later, but the Slavs drank mead more than anything else, so that could be a substitute], the prince passed his golden cup towards the princess, but the tailor snatched it as well. Then the prince ate half an orange [note: far too exotic for the simple people, especially barbarians, in IG’s time], passed the other half, which also disappeared before it could reach its destination. After that they started drinking wine, but the golden wine-cup vanished as well. Finally, they started throwing back and forth a golden apple, but after two of them disappeared, they gave up.
The frustrated princess said it’s time for her to go home, since it’s getting late and the night seems quite unlucky already, so she left and the tailor followed her and outran her, reached the palace and lied down, covering his head again. The princess came worried he might have woken up, but was relieved to see him still sleeping. When the king came in the morning and found the tailor really sleeping (since he was tired from all the night’s adventures), he prepared to send him for execution, but the man told him he can actually tell him where the princess is going each night and demanded the right to prove it. So the king called his daughter and courtiers and the tailor told them the story, taking out the various items he had snatched (without the magical ones, of course).
All the people agreed he had fulfilled his task, but the king wasn’t willing to give his daughter to such a low-born, poor man, so he gave him a new task – in forty days the tailor would have to crumble down a mountain near the palace, which was blocking the sunlight in the king’s bedroom. The young man agreed and did nothing whatsoever during the first thirty nine days, while in the last night he went to the mountain and gave the orders to the mace, which crumbled it down before sunrise.
The king was amazed, but gave him another task – if the tailor is to become a king after his death, he’d have to be able to fully support the army (i.e. provide it with food, clothes, fodder, weapons, armour, salary etc) for at least three months on his own. The tailor agreed, locked himself with a room and filled it whole up with golden coins from the magical tub. Then for the next three months he fed the army with the most selected foods, drinks and fodder, dressed them in the most beautiful dresses and armours decorated with gold and silver and paid them a salary ten times greater than the one provided by the king. The three months passed, but the army’s warehouses were still full for a whole year in advance. The king then told him to load up 9 mules with gold coins, which the tailor did with ease the same way (leaving half a room of gold coins to the king’s workers who were loading the mules). The king was impressed and finally married his daughter.
Not long after that, however, news reached the princess that the father of her distant prince has died and he’s ready to marry. She decided to run away, but was curious as to how her husband gets all those money, so after much questioning she found out about the magical tub, stole it while he was out hunting and ran to the prince. When the king found out her daughter has escaped from her new husband, he reproached him he couldn’t control a single woman, let alone a whole kingdom, and locked him up for forty days. In the meantime, he sent people all around his kingdom to find her, but they couldn’t. The king decided to execute his son-in-law, thinking his daughter escaped because she was ashamed being the wife of a tailor, but was also very angered at her as well. When the tailor was taken out to the executioners, he told the king to let him go for just three days and he’ll bring back his daughter. The king agreed, the young man went straight for the prince’s palace, where he ordered the mace to beat the prince up (which quickly killed him), then he ordered the mace to beat the princess, but more lightly and that way he took her to her father’s palace, where the king also spanked her like a little child and told her to obey her husband or he’ll allow him to use that mace on her again. Since then, the princess “got smarter and fonder of her husband”, not running away anymore and when her father passed away, the tailor became king.
Things to note:
- This isn’t a fully authored tale – it was actually present in the book I made the previous summaries from, although there were some differences – f.e. there the princess didn’t go to the palace of a distant prince, but a zmey, “as bright as the sun”, would come to take her to his palace. Also, the tale there ended when the poor man married the princess without any additional tasks. As stated in the previous tale, Nikolay Raynov’s heroes aren’t as romantic as in other tales – he’d “force” the princess to marry him, although he knows she loves someone else (then again, there were still no troubadours to propagate the concept of romantic love and although the Slavs were still Pagans and more liberated than the Christians, I guess most of their marriages would have been nevertheless arranged, not by love) and would then kill her beloved before her eyes and beat her up as well (somewhat fitting with the rougher times and the laws against adultery (especially the Abrahamic ones)). On the other hand, the version with the zmey gives the princess somewhat of an excuse, since we know the zmeys were quite the women-lovers and could enchant a maiden to fall in love against her will. Thus, I think this tale, especially in Raynov’s form, is somewhat better fitting for Byzantium (especially considering all the talks about kings, princes and princesses (remember that the Slavs are explicitly said to not be able to stand any king rule over them, but lived in a democracy with only some electable local knyazes and they certainly didn’t have such social stratifications and biases about being low- or high-born) etc).
- In the other version of the tale, there were only two devils arguing over the inheritance left from their father – a magical hat of invisibility and a silver wand and copper pan used for crossing the sea. The other items were not present, since the additional tasks by the king weren’t present as well.
Re: Dark Age Pagans
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