Atondido Stories
The king loved the little tree and was forever talking about it.
The old queen, on the other hand, disliked it.
“I wish that tree would die,” she used to say. “There’s some-
thing strange about it that makes me nervous.”
The king begged her to leave the tree alone but she worried
and complained and nagged until at last for his own peace of
mind he had the poor little pear tree cut down.
The seven years of Yezibaba’s curse at last ran out. Then Lud-
mila changed herself again into a little golden duck and went
swimming about on the lake that was under the king’s window.
Suddenly the king began to remember that he had seen that
duck before. He ordered it to be caught and brought to him. But
none of his people could catch it. Then he called together all the
fishermen and birdcatchers in the country but none of them
could catch the strange duck.
The days went by and the king’s mind was more and more
engrossed with the thought of the golden duck. “If no one can
catch it for me,” he said at last, “I must try to catch it myself.”
So he went to the lake and reached out his hand after the golden
duck. The duck led him on and on but at last she allowed herself
to be caught. As soon as she was in his hand she changed to her-
self and Raduz recognized her as his own beautiful Ludmila.
She said to him: “I have been true to you but you have forgotten
me all these years. Yet I forgive you, for it was not your fault.”
In Raduz’ heart his old love returned a hundredfold and he was
overjoyed to lead Ludmila to the castle. He presented her to his
mother and said:
“This is she who saved my life many times. She and no one
else will be my wife.”
A great wedding feast was prepared and so at last Raduz
married the faithful Ludmila.
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