The Three Suitors

In a very remote country there formerly lived a king who had only one

child,--an exceedingly beautiful daughter. The princess had a great

number of suitors, and amongst them were three young noblemen, whom

the king loved much. As, however, the king liked the three nobles

equally well, he could not decide to which of the three he should give

his daughter as a wife. One day, therefore, he called the three young

noblemen to him, and said, 'Go all of you and travel about the world.

The one of you who brings home the most remarkable thing shall become

my son-in-law!'

The three suitors started at once on their travels, each of them

taking opposite ways, and going in search of remarkable things into

distant and different countries.

A long time had not passed before one of the young nobles found a

wonderful carpet which would carry rapidly through the air whoever sat

upon it.

Another of them found a marvellous telescope, through which he could

see everybody and everything in the world, and even the many-coloured

sands at the bottom of the great deep sea.

The third found a wonder-working ointment, which could cure every

disease in the world, and even bring dead people back to life again.

Now the three noble travellers were far distant from each other when

they found these wonderful things. But when the young man who had

found the telescope looked through it he saw one of his former friends

and present rivals walking with a carpet on his shoulder, and so he

set out to join him. As he could always see, by means of his

marvellous telescope, where the other nobleman was, he had no great

difficulty in finding him, and when the two had met, they sat side by

side on the wonderful carpet, and it carried them through the air

until they had joined the third traveller.

One day, when each of them had been telling of the remarkable things

he had seen in his travels, one of them exclaimed suddenly, 'Now let

us see what the beautiful princess is doing, and where she is.' Then

the noble who had found the telescope looked through it and saw, to

his great surprise and dismay, that the king's daughter was lying very

sick, and at the point of death. He told this to his two friends and

rivals, and they, too, were as thunderstruck at the bad news--until

the one who had found the wonder-working ointment, remembering it

suddenly, exclaimed, 'I am sure I could cure her, if I could only

reach the palace soon enough!' On hearing this, the noble who had

found the wonderful carpet, cried out, 'Let us sit down on my carpet,

and it will quickly carry us to the king's palace!'

Thereupon the three nobles gently placed themselves on the carpet,

which rose instantly in the air, and carried them direct to the king's

palace.

The king received them immediately; but said very sadly, 'I am sorry

for you; for all your travels have been in vain. My daughter is just

dying, so she can marry none of you!'

But the nobleman who possessed the wonder-working ointment said

respectfully, 'Do not fear, sire, the princess will not die!' And on

being permitted to enter the apartment where she lay sick, he placed

the ointment so that she could smell it. In a few moments the princess

revived, and when her waiting-women had rubbed a little of the

ointment in her skin she recovered so quickly that in a few days she

was better than she had been before she was taken ill.

The king was so glad to have his daughter given back to him, as he

thought, from the grave, that he declared that she should marry no one

but the young nobleman whose wonderful ointment had cured her.

But now a great dispute arose between the three young nobles; the one

who possessed the ointment affirmed that had he not found it the

princess would have died, and could not, therefore, have married any

one; the noble who owned the telescope declared that had he not found

the wonderful telescope they would never have known that the princess

was dying, and so his friend would not have brought the ointment to

cure her; whilst the third noble proved to them that had he not found

the wonderful carpet, neither the finding of the ointment nor the

telescope would have helped the princess, since they could not have

travelled such a great distance in time to save her.

The king, overhearing this dispute, called the young noblemen to him,

and said to them, 'My lords, from what you have said, I see that I

cannot, with justice, give my daughter to any of you; therefore, I

pray you to give up altogether the idea of marrying her, and that you

continue friends as you always were before you became rivals.'

The three young nobles saw that the king had decided justly; so they

all left their native country, and went into a far-off desert to live

like hermits. And the king gave the princess to another of his great

nobles.

Many, many years had passed away since the marriage of the princess,

when her husband was sent by her father to a distant country with

which the king was waging war. The nobleman took his wife, the

princess, with him, as he was uncertain how long he might be forced to

remain abroad. Now it happened that a violent storm arose just as the

vessel, in which the princess and her husband were, was approaching a

strange coast, and in the height of the great tempest the ship dashed

on some rocks, and went to pieces instantly. All the people on board

perished in the waves, excepting only the princess, who clung very

fast to a boat, and was carried by the wind and the tide to the

sea-shore. There she found what seemed to be an uninhabited country,

and, finding a small cave in a rock, she lived in it alone three

years, feeding on wild herbs and fruits. She searched every day to

find some way out of the forest which surrounded her cave, but could

find none. One day, however, when she had wandered farther than usual

from the cave where she lived, she came suddenly on another cave,

which had, to her great astonishment, a small door. She tried over and

over again to open the door, thinking she would pass the night in the

cave; but all her efforts were unavailing, it was shut so fast. At

length, however, a deep voice from within the cave called out, 'Who is

at the door?'

At this the princess was so surprised that she could not answer for

some moments; when, however, she had recovered a little, she said,

'Open me the door!' Immediately the door was opened from within, and

she saw, with sudden terror, an old man with a thick grey beard

reaching below his waist, and long white hair flowing over his

shoulders.

What frightened the princess the more was her finding a man living

here in the same desert where she had lived herself three years

without seeing a single soul.

The hermit and the princess looked at each long and earnestly without

saying a word. At length, however, the old man said, 'Tell me, are you

an angel or a daughter of this world?'

Then the princess answered, 'Old man, let me rest a moment, and then I

will tell you all about myself, and what brought me here!' So the

hermit brought out some wild pears, and when the princess had taken

some of them, she began to tell him who she was, and how she came in

that desert. She said, 'I am a king's daughter, and once, many years

ago, three young nobles of my father's court asked the king for my

hand in marriage. Now the king had such an equal affection for all

these three young men that he was unwilling to give pain to any of

them, so he sent them to travel into distant countries, and promised

to decide between them when they returned.

'The three noblemen remained a long time away; and whilst they were

still abroad somewhere, I fell dangerously ill. I was just at the

point of death, when they all three returned suddenly; one of them

bringing a wonderful ointment which cured me at once; the two others

brought each equally remarkable things--a carpet that would carry

whoever sat on it through the air, and a telescope with which one

could see everybody and everything in the world, even to the sands at

the bottom of the sea.'

The princess had gone on thus far with her story, when the hermit

suddenly interrupted her, saying, 'All that happened afterwards I know

as well as you can tell me. Look at me, my daughter! I am one of those

noblemen who sought to win your hand, and here is the wonderful

telescope.' And the hermit brought out the instrument from a recess in

the side of his cave before he continued, 'My two friends and rivals

came with me to this desert. We parted, however, immediately, and have

never met since. I know not whether they are living or dead, but I

will look for them.'

Then the hermit looked through his telescope, and saw that the other

two noblemen were living in caves like his, in different parts of the

same desert. Having found this out, he took the princess by the hand,

and led her on until they found the other hermits. When all were

re-united, the princess related her adventures since the ship, in

which her husband was, had gone down, and she alone had been saved.

The three noble hermits were pleased to see her alive once again, but

at once decided that they ought to send her back to the king, her

father.

Then they made the princess a present of the wonderful telescope, and

the wonder-working ointment, and placed her on the wonderful carpet,

which carried her and her treasures quickly and safely to her father's

palace. As for the three noblemen, they remained, still living like

hermits, in the desert, only they visited each other now and then, so

that the years seemed no longer so tedious to them. For they had many

adventures to relate to each other.

The king was exceedingly glad to receive his only child back safely,

and the princess lived with her father many years but neither the king

nor his daughter could entirely forget the three noble friends who,

for her sake, lived like hermits in a wild desert in a far-off land.