Serbian Folk-lore

by Unknown

So they all ran off before him to show him the way, and he followed them carrying his pot on his shoulder.

When they arrived at the door of the king’s palace, one of the men said to him, ‘Wait a moment here, whilst I go and tell his Majesty all about your wonderful fat, and ask him to receive you.’ The shepherd waited quietly, though crowds gathered round him to stare at him and his great pot, until the man came back and said the king was waiting impatiently to see him. So he lifted his pot again on his shoulder—for he had set it down that he might rest the better—and followed the messenger to the king’s presence.

Now the king of the black men was far blacker than anything the shepherd had ever seen in his life; he had no doubt, however, after all he had seen, but that his fat would whiten him also. So he said cheerfully, ‘Good morning, your Majesty!’ ‘Good morning, my dear fellow,’ returned the black king; ‘I have heard that you can do wonders, and I have seen that you have already whitened many of my subjects, so, for Heaven’s sake, deliver me also from this my blackness, and ask in return whatever you like, even the half of my kingdom!’

‘What your Majesty has heard is quite true,’ said the shepherd; ‘and I will very gladly try to make you also white!’ and he took a great lump of fat and rubbed it well all over the king’s face and neck. In a moment the king became as white as snow, to the great rejoicings of all his people. But no one was so pleased as the king himself, so he said again, ‘Only ask! I will give you whatever you wish, even if it be my throne!’

‘I thank your Majesty very humbly for offering me your throne, but I don’t want it,’ replied the shepherd; ‘but if you will give me three ships full of gold and silver, and some good sailors to manage the ships, and some good soldiers and cannons to defend them against the pirates, I shall think myself more than repaid, and I will send you back the ships and cannons when the gold and silver are landed safely in my country.’

Then the king at once gave the necessary orders, and in a very few days his servants came to report to him, that the ships were then filled with gold and silver, and that the cannons were ready loaded and posted for action, and all the sailors and soldiers prepared to fight if any sea-robber came in their way.

Then the young shepherd took a courteous leave of the king, and of all those other people who were so thankful to him for having changed them from black men into white ones. He now went on board one of the ships, very glad to go back to his own country, and the two other ships full of gold and silver followed the first one across the seas.

After having sailed a long time the three ships reached at last the coast of the kingdom where the king was waiting, daily expecting the return of the gipsy and shepherd to claim his daughter. The shepherd let his ships lay quietly in the harbour one day, and then, noticing much tumult and disturbance in the city, went ashore to see what had happened. There he found a great crowd, and on asking some of the people what they were going to do, they told him that they were going to hang a gipsy who had come to the city with seventy piasters capital, and who had not only spent all his money in drinking and revellings, but had even got into debt for seventy other piasters, which he was quite unable to pay, and that this was the reason they were about to hang him. In a few moments the hangman appeared, leading the gipsy, who was no other than the very man who had tried to cheat the shepherd out of the princess.

The young shepherd recognised his rival at once, and, going near him, said, ‘What is this, my old friend? Have you really come to this?’ The instant the gipsy saw the shepherd he stopped and began to whine and wail, begging him to save him from the gibbet, and he would be his faithful servant all his life. ‘As for the princess,’ he added cunningly, ‘I have given her up a long time ago, and don’t care for anything if only my life is spared.’

Then the young shepherd was sorry for the poor trembling, whining wretch, and offered to pay the debt for the gipsy if the people would let him off. So they agreed to this, and the young man not only paid the seventy piasters the gipsy owed, but bought him besides a suit of good clothes as well as a carriage and a pair of fine horses. Then he left him and went back to his ships, and they sailed on slowly along the coast towards the king’s residence.