9. Interpretations of Fairy Tales

With these instructions, the prince set off and came to a stream. As he rested there, he saw a fish lying on the bank of the stream. It begged him, “Take me and throw me back into the water, and you will do me a great favor!” He did so, but as he was about to do so, the little fish gave him a whistle and said to him, “If you ever need anything, just take the whistle and blow it, and I will do you a service!” He took the whistle and went on his way. After a while, he came upon an ant being pursued by its enemy, a spider. He freed the ant, and the ant gave him a whistle and told him that if he ever found himself in need and blew the whistle, help would come to him. He put it in his pocket and went on his way. Soon he came upon a fox. It was wounded and had a silver arrow in it; and the fox said to him, “If you pull out the arrow and give me some comfrey for my wound, you will be helped in a difficult situation!” The prince did so, and the fox gave him another pipe. With these three pipes, the prince went to the old woman at the border of the country. He told her that he wanted to be her servant. “You can do that,” she said, “but my service is very hard; no one has ever been able to do it. And with that, she took him out into the field. There were ninety-nine people hanging there. The old woman said, “These are all those who have been hired by me as servants, but none of them can do the work. So if you feel like it and don't succeed, you can be the hundredth!” But he hired himself out to her for a year, but in that region, a year is only three days. On the first day, the old woman cooked him a dream soup, and then she sent him away with three horses. But he had drunk the dream soup, and so he soon fell asleep, and when he woke up again, the three horses were gone. He thought of the pipes, took out the first pipe, and blew it. There was now a kind of spring at that spot. Three little goldfish swam up, and when he touched them, they turned into the three horses. He took the horses back to the old woman. She was the one who had turned the horses into goldfish in the first place. When she saw him with the horses, she scolded him and threw herself from one side to the other.