Hungarian Folk Tales: The Princess' Shoes
Once upon a time there lived the most beautiful princess,
who was lovelier than any maiden on earth.
Prince after prince came to her father's palace,
princes from all over the world surrounded the lovely princess,
telling her the sweetest things, but it was no use:
it all went in one ear and out of the other.
In fact she laughed at them so loudly,
that the whole palace resounded to her laughter.
There was one among the princes who caught the princess' eye and she took a fancy to him.
But he was none the wiser for it as the merciless princess
poked even more fun at him than she did at the others.
As time went by, it happened one day that two fleas hopped into the princess' palm.
Well, she was as quick as lightning and held them fast in her hand.
She took the two fleas to a pot containing lard and put them in there,
so that they would grow big and fat.
She was right indeed, and hardly a year had gone by
when the two fleas had grown so huge that their hide was big enough to make a pair of shoes.
The princess made up her mind: she summoned the butcher,
had the fleas skinned, ordered the shoemaker to tan the hides
and the bootmaker to make her a pair of fine boots.
She had it announced far and wide that she would marry the man
who could tell her what animal's hide her boots were made out of.
The princes came flocking again from far-flung corners of the world.
They were all fine young men in their prime.
They lined up in the courtyard and started guessing what animal's hide
the princess' shoes could be made out of.
But none of them got it right.
Then the prince, the princess had taken a liking to dressed in a beggar's rags
and sneaked into the princess' bedchamber,
where he hid in the night hoping to hear what the princess would tell her maid about the boots.
He could not have been more right.
The princess had a good laugh at all the silly answers she had been hearing all day
and said to her maid:
You'll see, nobody will ever know that my boots have been made out of flea skin.
That was enough for the prince.
The next day he mingled in his beggar's clothes among the princes,
and when his turn came, he uttered:
Your royal highness, your boots are made out of flea skin.
The princess went white as a sheet shivered like a leaf but did not wish to go back on her word so she said:
You're right, beggar, so from this moment forth I'm your wedded wife till death do us part.
All right, my lovely young wife, but take off your nice silk clothes and put on beggar's rags,
then we'll make a perfect match.
The haughty princess donned the beggar woman's clothes and accompanied her husband
to a dirty little hut on the outskirts of the village.
As if all that had not been enough, she even had to beg with her husband day in day out.
On top of it all, she even had to make a fire and cook dinner for her husband
as best she could with what little she had.
To make matters worse, a farm labourer came and shouted to her in a loud voice:
Hey you, beggar woman, go at once to hoe the land on the prince's estate.
What else could the poor princess do, she went off as she had been ordered,
shedding many a tear on the way.
Her husband then made straight for the palace
there he donned his bright royal clothes and walked out among the labourers.
It was his fields that the beggar woman had been sent to.
The prince kept on encouraging and praising the labourers,
but scolded and humiliated his wife, saying that he had never seen such a bad farmhand,
although the poor woman was sweating with the effort she was making.
Dinner time came, all the labourers were seated at a big table
and silver cutlery was put next to the plate of each.
The prince still had not had enough.
He wanted his haughty wife never to forget the experience.
So he told another woman labourer to slip a silver spoon into the beggar woman's pocket.
There was a lot of toing and froing after dinner when the servants found a silver spoon was missing.
They went through the pockets of all the laborers and found the silver spoon in the beggar woman's pocket.
In vain did she swear that she had not stolen it, she was put in a dungeon.
By this time the lesson had been enough.
Hardly had the door of the dungeon been locked,
then the prince had it opened again and walked in till his young wife.
There he gently took her by the hand, led her up to the palace and said to her:
All right, you're crying days are over.
Put on your nice silk clothes again, I've put on mine too,
for I was the beggar you married.
Do you see now, my dear?
Well, to cut a long story short, they made up and started a new life together
that was a joy to see for everyone.
I saw it, make sure, you do too.