Atondido Stories
The Charcoal-Burner's Son Who Married a Princess
There was once a king who took great delight in hunting. One
day he followed a stag a great distance into the forest. He went
on and on until he lost his way. Night fell and the king by happy
chance came upon a clearing where a charcoal-burner had a
cottage. The king asked the charcoal-burner to lead him out of
the forest and offered to pay him handsomely.
“I’d be glad to go with you,” the charcoal-burner said, “but
my wife is expecting the birth of a child and I cannot leave her. It
is too late for you to start out alone. Won’t you spend the night
here? Lie down on some hay in the garret and tomorrow I’ll be
your guide.”
The king had to accept this arrangement. He climbed into the
garret and lay down on the floor. Soon afterwards a son was
born to the charcoal-burner.
At midnight the king noticed a strange light in the room be-
low him. He peeped through a chink in the boards and saw the
charcoal-burner asleep, his wife lying in a dead faint, and three
old women, all in white, standing over the baby, each holding a
lighted taper in her hand.
The first old woman said: “My gift to this boy is that he shall
encounter great dangers.”
The second said: “My gift to him is that he shall go safely
through them all, and live long.”
The third one said: “And I give him for wife the baby daugh-
ter born this night to the king who lies upstairs on the straw.”
The three old women blew out their tapers and all was quiet.
They were the Fates.
The king felt as though a sword had been thrust into his
heart. He lay awake till morning trying to think out some plan
by which he could thwart the will of the three old Fates.
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