The Queen Bee
Once upon a time two king’s sons went out to seek their fortune, but fell into such disorderly ways they
could not return home again. The youngest, who was called Simpleton, set off to find his brothers. When
finally he found them, they mocked him, saying that, with his simple mind, he wanted to find his way in
the world when even they, who were so much cleverer, could not manage it.
And so they travelled on together and came to an ant hill. The two older brothers wanted to destroy it and watch the little ants crawling about in fear as they carried their eggs away, but Simpleton said:
“Leave these creatures alone; I couldn’t bear to see you disturb them.”
So on they travelled and came to a lake where there were many, many ducks. The two brothers wanted to
catch a couple and roast them, but Simpleton would not allow it and said: “Leave these creatures alone; I
couldn’t bear to see you kill them.”
Finally they came to a bee hive, and it was so full of honey that it ran down the tree’s trunk. The two
brothers wanted to light a fire at the foot of the tree and suffocate the bees with smoke so they could
take the honey. Again Simpleton stopped them and said: “Leave these creatures alone; I couldn’t bear to
see you burn them.”
Finally the three brothers came to a castle with stone horses in the stables, and no sign of anyone;
they walked through all the rooms in the castle until they reached a door at the very end of it. There were
three locks on it; there was also a small flap in the door through which they could peek into the room.
There they saw a little gray man sitting at a table. They called out to him once, and then twice, but he
could not hear them. Finally they called a third time; he stood up and opened the locks and came out.
Without speaking a word, he led them to a richly decked table; after they had dined and wined, he showed each of them to their bedchamber.
The following morning, the little gray man came to the oldest brother and waved him over to a stone
tablet. Three tasks were written on it, and whoever performed them would free the castle. This was the
first task: In the forest, beneath the moss, lay the pearls of the king’s daughter, a thousand in all, all scattered about. They had to be collected; and if, by the time the sun went down, there was but one missing
pearl still missing, whoever had failed would be turned to stone.
The oldest brother set off and searched all day long, but as the day drew to a close, he had collected
but one hundred. And so it happened as was written on the tablet, and he was turned to stone. The following day the second brother set off on the venture. But he too fared no better than the older brother.
He found no more than two hundred pearls and was turned to stone.
Finally it was Simpleton’s turn: he searched in the moss, but the pearls were so difficult to find, and it
all took so much time. So he sat on a stone and began to cry. And as he sat there, the ant king whose life
he had saved came along with five thousand other ants, and it was not long before the little creatures, all
together, had found the pearls and gathered them up into a little pile.
The second task, however, was to fetch the key to the princess’s bedchamber from the lake. When
Simpleton reached the lake, the ducks he had once saved swam up to him, then dived into the water and
collected the key from the depths of the pond.
The third task, however, was the hardest of all. It was to pick out the youngest and nicest princess
from the kings’ three sleeping princesses. They all looked exactly alike except for the fact that, before
they had gone to sleep, they had each eaten something sweet: the oldest a bit of sugar; the second oldest
a little syrup; and the youngest a spoonful of honey. It was then that the queen of the bees arrived, the
ones Simpleton had saved from the fire, and she tasted the lips of each of the three princesses. Finally
she settled on the lips that tasted of honey, and so the king’s son was able to identify the right princess.
And thus the spell was broken. The whole castle was woken, and restored all those who had been turned
to stone. Simpleton married the youngest and nicest princess and became king after her father’s death.
And his two brothers received the two other sisters.
Ticki Park
www.tickipark.ch