The Queen Bee

Once, two sons of a king set off in search of adventure, and along the way they fell into a wild and reckless life, so that they never came home again. The youngest son, who was called Simpleton, set out to find his brothers. But when he found them at last, they laughed at him. How did he think, with his foolish simplicity, that he could make his way through the world, when they, who were so much cleverer, could not manage it themselves?

So the three of them traveled on together, and they came to an anthill. The two elder brothers wanted to dig it open, just to watch the little ants scurry about in their fright and carry off their eggs. But Simpleton said, "Leave the creatures in peace. I will not let you disturb them."

They went on farther and came to a lake, where many, many ducks were swimming. The two brothers wanted to catch a few and roast them, but Simpleton would not allow it, and said, "Leave the creatures in peace. I will not let you kill them."

At last they came to a bees' nest, so full of honey that it ran down the trunk of the tree. The two brothers wanted to light a fire beneath the tree and smother the bees, so they could take the honey. But once more Simpleton held them back, and said, "Leave the creatures in peace. I will not let you burn them."

At last the three brothers came to a castle. In the stables stood nothing but horses of stone, and not a single person was to be seen. They walked through all the halls until, at the very end, they came to a door hung with three locks. In the middle of the door was a little window, and through it they could see into the room. There sat a small grey man at a table. They called to him once, they called twice, but he did not hear. When they called the third time, he stood up, opened the locks, and came out. He said not a word, but led them to a table richly spread with food. When they had eaten and drunk, he brought each of them to a bedroom of his own.

The next morning the little grey man came to the eldest brother, beckoned to him, and led him to a table of stone. On it were written three tasks by which the castle could be freed from its spell. The first task was this: in the forest, beneath the moss, lay the princess's pearls, a thousand of them, and they all had to be gathered up. If even a single pearl was missing by sunset, then whoever had searched would be turned to stone. The eldest went out and searched the whole day long, but when the day ended he had found only a hundred. And it happened just as the stone table said: he was turned to stone.

The next day the second brother took up the task, but he fared little better than the eldest. He found no more than two hundred pearls, and he too was turned to stone.

At last it was Simpleton's turn. He searched in the moss, but the pearls were so hard to find, and the work went so slowly, that he sat down upon a stone and wept. And as he sat there, the king of the ants, whose life he had once saved, came with five thousand ants. Before long the little creatures had found all the pearls together and gathered them into a heap.

The second task was to fetch the key to the princess's bedchamber up from the bottom of the lake. When Simpleton came to the lake, the ducks he had once saved came swimming up, dived down, and brought the key from the depths.

But the third task was the hardest of all. Of the king's three sleeping daughters, he had to pick out the youngest and dearest. Yet they looked exactly alike, and there was no way to tell them apart, save this: before falling asleep, each had eaten a different sweet. The eldest had eaten a lump of sugar, the second a little syrup, and the youngest a spoonful of honey. Then came the queen of the bees, the very bees that Simpleton had saved from the fire. She tasted the lips of all three, and at last she settled upon the mouth that had eaten honey. So the king's son knew which was the right princess.

With that, the spell was broken. Everyone woke from the enchanted sleep, and all who had been turned to stone took their human shapes again. Simpleton married the youngest and dearest princess, and after her father's death he became king. And his two brothers were given the other two sisters.