聪明的农家女


The peasant's wise daughter


从前有一个贫穷的农民。 他没有农田可耕,但是他有一所小房子和一个女儿。 一天,女儿说:"我们应当求国王给咱们一块荒地。"当国王得知他们的贫穷状况后,他就给了他们一块土地。 然后,她和她父亲就进行翻耕,想在地里种些粮食什么的。 当他们快翻完整块地的时候,在土里发现了一个纯金的臼。 "听我说,"父亲对女儿讲:"咱们的国王很仁慈,送给了我们这块土地。作为回报,我们该把这个金臼献给他。"然而,女儿却不同意,回答说:"爸爸,咱有臼却没有杵,必须找到杵才行。所以您还是别吭声。"但父亲不听她的,拿着臼就去见国王,说他在翻地时发现了这个臼,并希望国王接受这个礼物。 国王拿过金臼问,是不是没拣到别的什么呢? "没有。"农民回答说。 于是,国王说,他现在应该把杵也去找来。 农民回答说,他们没有发现杵呀。 但他的话只被国王当了耳旁风,结果农民被关进监狱,国王说一直要到他找来杵才会被释放。 狱卒们每天给他送来牢饭,那只不过是清水和面包而已,他们总是听到他大声哭嚎:"唉,要是我听了女儿的话就好了!唉,要是我听了女儿的话就好了!"于是,狱卒们去报告国王:"农民总是大叫:'唉,要是我听了女儿的话就好了!'并且既不吃也不喝。"国王就命狱卒去把农民带来。 农民被带来后,国王问为什么他总是叫喊:"唉,要是我听了女儿的话就好了!"并问他女儿究竟说了什么。 "她说我不该把那金臼送来,因为您一定会要我再去找到杵。""要是你的女儿这么聪明,让她到我这儿来一趟。"
农民的女儿奉命去见国王。 国王说如果她真是这么聪明,他要给她出个谜语,如果她能猜到,国王就会娶她。 农民女儿马上说行,她愿意猜谜。 然后,国王说:"你上我这儿来,既不穿衣,也不光身子,既不骑马,也不走路,既不走在路上,也不走在路外。要是你能办到,我就娶你为妻。"于是农民的女儿就回去了。 她脱光了衣服,这样她就没穿衣服啦;然后她拿来一张大鱼网,钻进鱼网,并一圈一圈地用网裹满全身,这样她就不是光着身子啦;然后她租来一头驴,并把鱼网拴在驴尾上,这样驴就得拖着她走,所以她既不骑马也不走路啦;而且,驴只能沿着车辙拖她,使她只能用大脚趾头点地,这样就既不在路上,也不在路外啦。 当她这样来到国王面前时,国王说猜中了,并满足了所有条件。 国王命令释放了她的父亲,让她做了自己的妻子,并把王室的全部财产交给她掌管。
几年过去了。 国王要去检阅军队,这时出现了一件事:一些农民卖完木材后把车停在了皇宫前面,其中一些车由牛拉着,一些车是马拉着。 有个农民的车是三匹马拉的,其中一匹马产了只小马驹,小马驹下地后跑了,并卧在了另一辆车的两头牛中间。 这些农民为争马驹聚到一起争吵起来,而且打闹在一起,一片混乱。 赶牛车的农民想把小马驹留下,说是他的牛生下了这小东西,而赶马车的农民说是他的马生下了小马驹,所以小马驹是他的。 争吵被报到了国王面前,国王判决说:现在小东西在哪里就该留在哪里。 这样赶牛车的农民就得到了不属于他的小马驹。 另一个农民只好哭着离开,为失去他的小马驹而感到冤枉。 后来他听说王后非常仁慈,因为她也出身贫苦,就来求她,希望能帮他要回小马驹。 王后说:"好的,如果你能保证不讲出是我的主意,我就会告诉你怎么做。明天一早,国王去检阅卫兵时,你站在他必须经过的路中间,拿一张大网装作打鱼的样子,一边拉网一边还要往外倒,好像网里真的装满了鱼。"然后她告诉农民如果国王问他,他该说些什么。 第二天,农民果然站在那里,在大路上打鱼。 国王经过时看见了,就派他的传令兵去问这傻子在干什么。 农民回答说:"打鱼呗。"传令兵问:"水都没有,怎么打鱼?"农民回答:"好打,就像牛能生小马驹一样,我在干地上也能打鱼。"传令兵跑回去向国王报告了傻子的回答。 国王命令把农民带到他跟前,并对农民说,这样的主意他肯定想不出来,国王想知道是谁的主意,并要他马上坦白。 可是农民不肯照办,只是讲:上帝保佑,就是他自己想出来的。 他们把他推倒在一捆麦草上,长时间地拷打,威逼,最后农民承认了,这是王后的主意。
国王回到家中,就问他的妻子:"为什么你对我虚伪?我不再要你做我的妻子了。你的好日子已经到头,回到你原来的地方--你的小农屋去吧。"不过他容许王后带走一样她认为最心爱、最珍贵的东西。 她说:"好吧,亲爱的丈夫,如果你这样命令 ,我照办就是了。 "说着她扑进了国王的怀里,吻了他,向他告别。然后她叫人送来烈性的安眠水,当作告别酒。国王喝了一大口,而她却只喝了一点点。国王一会儿就睡得死死的了,她让侍从拿来一块白净漂亮的麻布,把国王包在里面。然后,侍从们奉命把国王抬到停在门前的车上,她驾着马车把他运回了自己的小屋。接着,她让国王躺在她的床上。国王一觉睡了一天一夜,他醒来时,环顾四周说:"上帝呀,我在哪里呀? "他喊他的侍从,可一个也不在。终于,他妻子走到床前说:"亲爱的国王,您告诉我可以从宫中拿走一样我认为是最心爱和最珍贵的东西,我觉得没有任何东西比您更可亲,更珍贵了,所以我把您带了回来。 "国王感动得满脸是泪,说:"亲爱的妻子,你应该属于我,我也应该属于你。 "然后,国王就把她带回王宫,并与她重新成为夫妻。也许至今,他们还活着呢。
There was once a poor peasant who had no land, but only a small house, and one daughter. Then said the daughter, "We ought to ask our lord the King for a bit of newly-cleared land." When the King heard of their poverty, he presented them with a piece of land, which she and her father dug up, and intended to sow with a little corn and grain of that kind. When they had dug nearly the whole of the field, they found in the earth a mortar made of pure gold. "Listen," said the father to the girl, "as our lord the King has been so gracious and presented us with the field, we ought to give him this mortar in return for it." The daughter, however, would not consent to this, and said, "Father, if we have the mortar without having the pestle as well, we shall have to get the pestle, so you had much better say nothing about it." He would, however, not obey her, but took the mortar and carried it to the King, said that he had found it in the cleared land, and asked if he would accept it as a present. The King took the mortar, and asked if he had found nothing besides that? "No," answered the countryman. Then the King said that he must now bring him the pestle. The peasant said they had not found that, but he might just as well have spoken to the wind; he was put in prison, and was to stay there until he produced the pestle. The servants had daily to carry him bread and water, which is what people get in prison, and they heard how the man cried out continually, "Ah! if I had but listened to my daughter! Alas, alas, if I had but listened to my daughter!" and would neither eat nor drink. So he commanded the servants to bring the prisoner before him, and then the King asked the peasant why he was always crying, "Ah! if I had but listened to my daughter!" and what it was that his daughter had said. "She told me that I ought not to take the mortar to you, for I should have to produce the pestle as well." - "If you have a daughter who is as wise as that, let her come here." She was therefore obliged to appear before the King, who asked her if she really was so wise, and said he would set her a riddle, and if she could guess that, he would marry her. She at once said yes, she would guess it. Then said the King, "Come to me not clothed, not naked, not riding, not walking, not in the road, and not out of the road, and if thou canst do that I will marry thee." So she went away, put off everything she had on, and then she was not clothed, and took a great fishing net, and seated herself in it and wrapped it entirely round and round her, so that she was not naked, and she hired an ass, and tied the fisherman's net to its tail, so that it was forced to drag her along, and that was neither riding nor walking. The ass had also to drag her in the ruts, so that she only touched the ground with her great toe, and that was neither being in the road nor out of the road. And when she arrived in that fashion, the King said she had guessed the riddle and fulfilled all the conditions. Then he ordered her father to be released from the prison, took her to wife, and gave into her care all the royal possessions.
Now when some years had passed, the King was once drawing up his troops on parade, when it happened that some peasants who had been selling wood stopped with their waggons before the palace; some of them had oxen yoked to them, and some horses. There was one peasant who had three horses, one of which was delivered of a young foal, and it ran away and lay down between two oxen which were in front of the waggon. When the peasants came together, they began to dispute, to beat each other and make a disturbance, and the peasant with the oxen wanted to keep the foal, and said one of the oxen had given birth to it, and the other said his horse had had it, and that it was his. The quarrel came before the King, and he give the verdict that the foal should stay where it had been found, and so the peasant with the oxen, to whom it did not belong, got it. Then the other went away, and wept and lamented over his foal. Now he had heard how gracious his lady the Queen was because she herself had sprung from poor peasant folks, so he went to her and begged her to see if she could not help him to get his foal back again. Said she, "Yes, I will tell you what to do, if thou wilt promise me not to betray me. Early to-morrow morning, when the King parades the guard, place thyself there in the middle of the road by which he must pass, take a great fishing-net and pretend to be fishing; go on fishing, too, and empty out the net as if thou hadst got it full" and then she told him also what he was to say if he was questioned by the King. The next day, therefore, the peasant stood there, and fished on dry ground. When the King passed by, and saw that, he sent his messenger to ask what the stupid man was about? He answered, "I am fishing." The messenger asked how he could fish when there was no water there? The peasant said, "It is as easy for me to fish on dry land as it is for an ox to have a foal." The messenger went back and took the answer to the King, who ordered the peasant to be brought to him and told him that this was not his own idea, and he wanted to know whose it was? The peasant must confess this at once. The peasant, however, would not do so, and said always, God forbid he should! the idea was his own. They laid him, however, on a heap of straw, and beat him and tormented him so long that at last he admitted that he had got the idea from the Queen.
When the King reached home again, he said to his wife, "Why hast thou behaved so falsely to me? I will not have thee any longer for a wife; thy time is up, go back to the place from whence thou camest to thy peasant's hut." One favour, however, he granted her; she might take with her the one thing that was dearest and best in her eyes; and thus was she dismissed. She said, "Yes, my dear husband, if you command this, I will do it," and she embraced him and kissed him, and said she would take leave of him. Then she ordered a powerful sleeping draught to be brought, to drink farewell to him; the King took a long draught, but she took only a little. He soon fell into a deep sleep, and when she perceived that, she called a servant and took a fair white linen cloth and wrapped the King in it, and the servant was forced to carry him into a carriage that stood before the door, and she drove with him to her own little house. She laid him in her own little bed, and he slept one day and one night without awakening, and when he awoke he looked round and said, "Good God! where am I?" He called his attendants, but none of them were there. At length his wife came to his bedside and said, "My dear lord and King, you told me I might bring away with me from the palace that which was dearest and most precious in my eyes I have nothing more precious and dear than yourself, so I have brought you with me." Tears rose to the King's eyes and he said, "Dear wife, thou shalt be mine and I will be thine," and he took her back with him to the royal palace and was married again to her, and at the present time they are very likely still living.