I have always adored this story. I’m not sure why, because it also makes me kind of mad? But it’s fantastic.
Once a peasant and his daughter were granted by the king a piece of land. When they worked this land, they found in the soil a golden mortar. The peasant wished to give it to the king, to thank him for the land, but his daughter advised against this. If he was given the mortar, she said, he would certainly then demand the pestle to match.
Well, the peasant took the mortar to the king anyway, and the king demanded the pestle. He put the peasant in prison, refusing to release him until he’d produced a golden pestle.
Dude. You gave him an entire plot of land. That pestle could be anywhere on the property. There’s no telling how deeply it’s buried. It might be buried on the next plot over. Or it might not have been buried with the mortar at all. But if it was, how on earth is this man supposed to track it down while in prison?
In prison the man refused to eat or drink, only saying, over and over again, that he should have listened to his daughter. The king asked him about his daughter, and he explained the advice he’d ignored. The king was impressed by her wisdom, and demanded to meet her. He said that if she could answer his riddle, he would marry her.
Because who wouldn’t want to marry a jerk who imprisoned her father for the terrible crime of giving him a gift?
The girl was instructed to come to the king neither naked nor clothed, neither riding nor walking, neither on the road nor off it.
So she stripped, wrapped herself in a fishing net, and had a donkey drag her to the palace in the ditch on the side of the road.
And after this whole spectacle, where half the kingdom saw her dragged down the street mostly naked, the king married her and released her father from prison.
Doesn’t it just seem like this is going to be the happiest, healthiest marriage ever?
Years passed. A man had a horse who gave birth in the night, and the next morning the foal was found standing with his neighbor’s oxen. The neighbor insisted that the oxen had birthed the foal, and that it therefore belonged to him. This dispute was brought before the king, who gave the foal to the neighbor with the ox. Because apparently the king is an idiot as well as a jerk.
The horse owner went to the queen for help. She set him to casting a fishing net on the dry land in front of the palace, and acting as if he was catching fish. When the king had him questioned about this, the man said, "It is as easy for me to fish on dry land as it is for an ox to have a foal."
The king was quite certain this whole thing wasn’t the man’s own idea, and demanded to know who had told him to do it. The man refused, so the king had him tortured until he admitted he talked to the queen.
This man is never mentioned again, and it is unclear whether he ever got his foal back.
The king went to his wife, enraged that she had betrayed him.
Betrayed him? By, firstly, having a brain in her head, and secondly, daring to point out that he doesn’t? Dude, if you’re going to be that stupid and unfair, someone’s gonna call you on it. You’re the one who wanted a wise wife.
He sent her back to her peasant father’s hut. (Seriously? Her dad still lives in a hut? He couldn’t give his father-in-law a room in the palace?) But she could take home her one favorite thing from the palace with her.
So she had the king drugged, and called some servants to take him to the hut while he was sleeping.
Which, like, on the one hand, that’s really sweet. He’s her favorite thing! But on the other hand, why? I haven’t been impressed with his behavior so far. If I was her, I’d be happy to get kicked out, so I wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore.
When he woke up in the hut, and realized how much she loved him, they went back to the palace, and lived happily ever after. Unlike her dad, who still lived in a hut, and the horse owner, who may or may not have his foal back, but either way, had to recover from being tortured.
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