joi, 8 ianuarie 2009

The 5 romanian fairytales - Youth without old age and life without death


Youth without old age and life without death


Once upon a time, in a far, far away country there lived a young and powerful king and the most beautiful queen. They were happy together and the kingdom was peaceful, but they wanted to have children and an heir to the throne and they couldn’t. In the end they went to an old wizard who welcomed them and asked them what business they had with him.
The king and his wife requested a cure for them to have a baby. The old man gave them the cure and after a while the queen got pregnant. All kingdom was happy that soon their king would have their promised heir.
When the time came the child didn’t want to be born. To conciliate him, the father promised him a beautiful princess, but in vain. Then he promised the kingdom and all the gold in the world. He didn’t succeed in convincing him and finally he promised him youth without old age and life without death. Hearing the father’s words, the boy, who would be called in our story Prince Charming, was born.
They had a very handsome baby with soft white skin, blue eyes and dark curly hair.
One day the parents went to visit the wizard because they wanted to have another baby. Once more he gave them the potion and they had the baby.
Eighteen years later, the two brothers became enemies. The youngest brother was very bad and he killed their parents without knowing who was going to be the new king. After this he became the captain of his own army.
The eldest went to visit the wizard and explained to him the death of his parents. He wanted revenge and asked the wizard for a potion to kill his own brother. The wizard accepted but told the Prince that he needed some ingredients to prepare the potion, and the most important was a hair of his brother, without it the potion wouldn’t work. He didn’t know how to get it so the wizard decided that he would tell the young Prince that he needed a hair in order to make him stronger and braver if he was going to be the new King.
The wizard went to the castle with this purpose, but the young Prince discovered his intention and killed him.
When the older Prince knew this new death, he went into his brother’s bedroom and took a hair from his head.
Then he went to the wizard’s grotto and looked up in the potions book. He had all the ingredients and started preparing the potion.
He puts the last finishing touch into the potion. Little did he know that his younger brother was watching his every move. That night the younger brother brought a golden goblet* of wine and placed it beside his bed. Later, when he left the room the older brother switched the wine with the poisonous potion without realising that the hair in the potion was in fact the hair of the family cat. The younger brother switches the goblets again and the older brother drinks the poison and dies. The younger brother becomes the king but he is hated by his people and they throw him in a lake. Then the older brother comes back to life because, after all, a cat has nine lives and this explained the promise at his birth: ‘Youth without old age and life without death.’ The whole kingdom celebrated with a big ceremony.’

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