Once upon a time there was a man, no one like a pansy's daughter. The man got tired of widowhood and married a widowed woman one day. This woman also had a daughter. The woman was envious of her husband's orphan, for she was prettier and better than he was, and she wondered how she could get rid of him. The woman pretended to be ill and fell into bed.
- What is it basam"What have you found to make you lie down?" asks the master.
- "I don't know what's wrong with me," the woman lies, "my legs can't stand and I'm sore all over.
A man picks thousands of kilos of grass, makes his wife drink it, but his condition doesn't improve. One day he says to his master:
An dervis appeared in my dream at night and said to me:
- If you want to recover from your trouble, tell your master to take his daughter, take her to the top of a mountain and leave her there. If you do not do this, all is in vain.
It is in vain to say that she is his sweet child, that he cannot disturb her from her house. No words, no speech, no entreaty, no remonstrance will avail.
- "It's either your daughter or me," is her reply.
It's with a broken heart that you take your daughter out. The next day he takes his axe and prepares to go to the mountains. He says to his daughter:
- Let's go to the hills, my daughter, I'll chop wood, and you'll pick flowers and grass.
They set off and as they reach the top of a mountain, he says to his daughter:
- Here we are, pick the flowers.
With that, he leaves, leaving his pansy orphaned. The girl picks the many beautiful flowers and time passes, time passes, her father does not come for her. The girl suspects that it was done on purpose and in her grief the poor thing weeps.
She is staring at the girl and, terrified of what to do, she climbs a tree and falls asleep. She was tired from the whole day's work. In the morning, she wakes up and, thirsty and hungry as she is, sets off out of the mountains.
He walks little, he walks a lot, he comes up hills, he goes on flat ground, he enters a bait shop and, so tired, he collapses in it that his human face is almost gone. He searches for a way out and stumbles and stumbles until suddenly a cave opens up in front of him. As soon as he enters the cave to rest, he sees a dev-woman in the corner. She was kneading bread and her right breast was over her left shoulder and her left breast over her right shoulder. Her teeth were chattering with fear and she didn't know what to do. When he comes to her, Allah (God) knows what evil may befall him; and if he flees, he will pursue him.
- Ej, - thinks the girl - let it be Allah will.
He staggers over to the dev-in front of her, calls her "uncle" and starts sucking sweetly from her two breasts, as if she were her child.
- The offspring of man, - says the dev-woman - if you hadn't called me uncle, and if you hadn't tasted my milk, I would have swallowed you in one bite.
She's going to make a fuss.
- You are my mother and I am your daughter, help me in my great trouble.
It makes him weep for his fate and the great evil of his stepmother. He is pitied by the dev-wife and adopt her as his child. He makes her sleep, puts her to bed at night and when they wake up the next day, leads her into the depths of the cave. The cave was full of snakes, all of them tiny.
- Here, - shows the dev-Miss - these snakes are all my children. Don't be afraid, they won't hurt you, just take good care of them.
The little girl was left among the snakes. She boils water for them, sprinkles a little bran in it and feeds it to them. She sits there all day long, caressing and stroking them, and decorating their necks with blue beads.
As it gets darker, it comes to dev-and as soon as the snakes see her, they hiss and hiss with great delight. A dev-woman strokes the pansy's daughter, she is very pleased with her.
It's been a long time since she became the snake's caretaker. She tells her one day dev-woman:
- My daughter, you have served faithfully; tell me what you wish, what shall I reward you with?
She says she wants to see her father.
- Okay, - says the dev and fills a chest with gold, and a chest with all kinds of precious stones, and puts it on a golden chariot, and puts the pansy on it, and says to her:
- Here, my daughter, you will go to your father's house with this cart and when you get home, take the boxes to a room and only you and your father will take out what is in it.
They say goodbye, she kisses his hand dev-and heads home. The father is delighted when he sees his daughter; he embraces her, kisses her, they take the trunks into a room, open it, and there is gold and jewels inside. His daughter tells him how it happened and how it happened.
It didn't take long before the stepmother knew her luck. He is drilled with envy and so he reasons to himself:
- I threw him into the mountains to be devoured by the wolf. He was gone, and behold his watch struck a lucky stroke. I'll send my own daughter out, and see if her luck will change.
Then he hurries to his master and orders him, with great grumpiness, to take his daughter to where the other one was. In spite of her excuses, in spite of her lord's protests, the woman will not give way.
So be it, thought the man, and they took the other girl into the hills to pick the flowers. The girl picks the flowers, and that her stepfather will not come for her, she takes the world by the scruff of her neck and sets off in the direction of the dev-is the camping site of Mrs. She's scared of the mother devil, sucks one or two from her breast and goes to the snakes to take care of them, just like the other one.
Once he is alone with the animals, he coldly offers them water. He hates them, he's disgusted by them, and a kind word is not enough, not even enough to them. In the evening, the dev-and hurries to her snakes to see if there is any trouble at the house. Oh, how they complain, how the little animals whine.
- We get our food cold, we're scolded and insulted, - complain the many little cattle.
Not about the dev-woman not a word.
She feeds them the same way the next day, the third day; the snakes complain even more, the lamentations even more bitter. By the fourth day, thus says the dev-woman to the girl:
- My daughter, I no longer need your service. Tell me, what is your wish?
She wants to go home to her mother and get gold and jewels for herself.
- Okay, - says the dev-woman, he fills a big box with snakes, puts the box and the girl on a cart and drives them home.
The mother is waiting for her daughter, they hug, kiss and carry the box into a room, so that somehow you don't see it.
- I wonder what's in it? - she wonders, and as soon as they open the box, well, sir. Allah, just slithering out of it are the masses of snakes. They bite the mother, they bite the daughter, they are killed by the poison of the snakes.
Meanwhile the man comes and calls his wife. He calls once, he calls several times, no sound, no noise from their room. He goes in to them, and there they both lie on the floor. His grief is not very great, for he has had more trouble than pleasure with them. He calls for the imam(priest) and the muezzin(church) and bury them. Peace is then his life and he has so much money that he will not be able to eat until the day he dies.
(Ignác Kúnos: Tales from the Island of Roses)
