“That is exactly what I was going to say!” cried the gipsy, coming up quickly; “she has the mark of a sun on her breast.”
Now the king was exceeding surprised, and confessed to his counsellors that the young shepherd had really guessed the truth. But as neither the king nor the counsellors at all liked the idea of the princess marrying a poor shepherd, they consulted how they could get rid of him without giving the lie to the king’s proclamation. At length it was decided that his Majesty should say, “As both the shepherd and the gipsy have guessed the princess’s birth-marks, I cannot justly decide which of them should marry her. But I will give to each of them seventy piasters, and they must both go and trade with this money for a year. At the end of the year, that one which brings back the most money shall have the princess for his wife.”
The young shepherd and the gipsy, having received the money, went off in opposite directions to seek their fortunes. [[196]]
After having travelled about some time, like a fly without a head, not knowing where—the shepherd stopped one night to rest in the hut of an old woman, who was even poorer than his own mother.
As he sat with the old woman in the hut that evening, the lad thought he might just as well ask her advice as to the best way to invest his capital of seventy piasters, so he said: “I have seventy piasters to trade with, can you tell me some good way in which I may employ them profitably?”
The old woman considered the matter for some time before she answered, and then said, “To-morrow is market-day in the next city; go there yourself, and when a man brings a very poor cow for sale, go up and try to buy it. The cow will be of many different colours, but very thin and ill fed, but you must buy her at whatever price the man asks for her. When you have bought her, bring her here at once.”
The young man agreed to follow the old woman’s counsel, and so next day he went to the city and really found there a man who had brought a poor, but variously coloured, cow to sell. Many people wished to buy the cow, but the young man outbid them all, and at length offered all his seventy piasters for her. So he got the cow, and drove it to the hut where he had passed the night. When the old woman came out to see who was coming, he called out to her, “Now, my old mother, I have bought the cow, and what shall we do with her? She has cost me all my capital!” [[197]]
The old woman answered at once, “Kill the cow, my son, and cut it in pieces.”
“But how will that bring me back my money with profit?” asked the young shepherd, hesitating whether he should follow her advice or no.
“Don’t be afraid, my son, but do as I say,” returned the old woman. Accordingly he did as she advised him, killed the cow and cut her into pieces. This done, he asked again, “And now, what shall I do?” The old woman said quietly, “Well, now we will eat the meat, and the suet we will melt down and put into a pot to keep for some other occasion.”