Once upon a time, across the seven seas, across the Peruvian Sea, there was a king. A king of terrible power, the people feared him, and when they saw him from afar, they trembled like a leaf.
When this king sneezed, the news was spread all over the land by stirrups and horsemen, and anyone who did not say, "God bless you," was a son of death.
There wasn't a man in the whole country who didn't say, "God bless you!". It was the starry-eyed shepherd.
So the king's men took the starry-eyed shepherd, brought him before the king, and reported him:
- Ihol, my majesty, this starry-eyed shepherd does not want to say "God bless you!".
Hey, the king is in a terrible rage!
- What, you don't say, "God bless you"?!
- No, I do not say, my reigning king, I say, God grant me health.
- Not for my health, but for his health.
- For I said, my lord my king, to my health.
The yard master tugs at his shepherd's crook, whispering to him:
- You ass, say "God bless you!".
- 'But I will not say so,' said the shepherd, 'until his Majesty the King gives me his daughter.
There was the princess in the room, and she liked the starry-eyed shepherd, and would have been his wife with a good heart, but she dared not speak. But the king, hearing nothing else, called in his soldiers:
- Take this lad and throw him into the white bear's dungeon!
They take the lad down to the dungeon, and there the white bear walks up and down, growling, he hasn't eaten for three days, they haven't given him a bite to eat, to make him hungry, let him tear the shepherd apart. As soon as the shepherd entered, he stood up on his hind legs and roared.
- Now, starry-eyed shepherd, your life is over!
But get this, when the bear saw the shepherd's starry eye, he suddenly cowered, lay down on the ground and didn't move. And the shepherd with the starry eye hummed and whistled all night long, and when the master of the yard came in the morning, his eyes were wide open, he thought he could not find a bone of the shepherd, and behold, there he was, alive and well, with not a dog's paw on him.
They lead the shepherd up to the king and report:
- Sire King, the shepherd lives.
- 'All right, all right,' says the king, 'but you're scared, aren't you? Do you now say, "God bless you!"?
The shepherd replied:
- Not until he gives me his daughter, even if I die ten deaths.
- Well, then, cast ten to the death! - cried the king.
They took the lad to the dungeon, where ten giant hedgehogs were locked up. But they were not tamed by his eyes, for he could not look ten hedgehogs in the eye at the same time. No, but the starry-eyed shepherd had a beautiful solo flute, which he pulled from under his suba, began to play, began to play andalong, and continued to multiply.
And so, my lord, the hedgehogs began to dance, they walked slowly at first, then faster, they walked until they were asleep, and then they lay down and slept like a fur.
In the morning, the yard master goes downstairs, claps his hands together:
- Are you alive?" he asks the starry-eyed shepherd.
- I will not die, says the shepherd, until the king's daughter is my wife.
You are brought before the King.
- "Well, my lad," says the king, "you have been in the jaws of ten deaths, and yet you do not say, 'God bless you'?
- Not I, my lord my king, though I be put to a hundred deaths, till he give me his daughter.
- Well, then take him to a hundred deaths! - cried the king with great wrath, and they took the starry-eyed shepherd down into a dungeon, in the midst of which was a well, and the inside of it was lined with a hundred scythe, and at the bottom of it burned a lamp.
Those who were thrown into it never came out alive.
"Oh, my poor head," thought the shepherd to himself, "this is not half a joke!"
He tells the soldiers to get out of the dungeon for a while while he thinks about saying, "God bless you!".
The soldiers go out, and the shepherd suddenly sticks his cape into the well, hangs his pack on the cape, then his suba, and his cap with the baroness's hair on the neck of the suba, and with it he lies down in the corner of the dungeon.
The soldiers come in and ask:
- Well, have you changed your mind?
- "I've thought about it," says the shepherd, "but I'm not going to say, 'God bless you'.
- Sure, if you don't tell us, we'll push you down the well. The soldiers thought that the shepherd was already standing by the well, and they threw his suba, his fokosa, everything he had into the well, and when they saw that the candle at the bottom of the well had gone out, they thought that the shepherd was dead.
In the morning the yard master comes down to see if the starry-eyed shepherd is really dead. Well, listen to him, sitting by the well, playing his flute.
They bring him up before the king, and the king says to him:
- Well, lad, thou hast been a hundred deaths now, wilt thou say, "God bless thee!"
- Not I, my sovereign king, until he gives me his daughter.
- "That will be nothing," said the king, "though I don't know what he would have given for the shepherd to say, 'God bless you!'
"After all," thought the king, "you will be content with less."
He caught me in his velvet swing, and seated the starry-eyed shepherd beside him, and drove me into the silver forest. She said to him:
- Do you see this silver eagle, you shepherd? I'll give it to you if you say, "God bless you."
The shepherd liked the forest, but now he said:
- Not until you give me your daughter, my king.
Then the king drove out of the forest, and the golden castle shone towards them from afar.
- Do you see that gold castle, shepherd? I'll give it to you if you say, "God bless you."
- I will not tell you, my king, until you give me your daughter.
They went on and came to the diamond pond.
- 'Well, shepherd,' said the king, 'I give you the silver castle, the golden castle and the diamond lake, but say once, "God bless you!"
- I will not tell you, my king, until you give me your daughter.
- Very well, you rascal, I'll give you my daughter, but then say, "God bless you!"
Well, they go home, and the king immediately announces to the whole country that he is marrying his daughter to the starry-eyed shepherd, come who may, there will be food and drink enough, especially if they bring their own. For there's a wedding feast for seven countries.
There sat the starry-eyed shepherd beside the king, they ate and drank and were merry. Then one day they brought the good horseradish meat, and the king made a great noise, and the starry-eyed shepherd said one after another:
- God bless you, God bless you, God bless you! - he said something a hundred times.
- Oh, oh, say no more, I'd rather give you my whole country. And there the shepherd was crowned king, but the people had a good fate. And they loved this king.
When he made a sneeze, everyone cried out with one heart and soul, "God bless you!"Those who don't believe, let them go to the end, and this tale, God bless you!
