Once upon a time, even across the Peruvian Sea, there was a forest. At the edge of it lived a couple in a little hut. They had no children yet, but they wanted them very much.
On a beautiful spring day, they had a baby girl. In their joy they decided to plant a small oak tree. You know, acorns grow on oak trees and squirrels love them. They build a little hole in it and collect the acorns there for the winter.
This was no ordinary oak tree, but a magic oak tree. They planted it, and when they woke up in the morning, they could not see the top of the tree. It grew so high that they couldn't even see the foliage because it was covered by clouds. During the night this tree grew so tall that it reached up to the clouds.
They wondered why it had grown so big, what could be on top of this tree? How could this even happen? What should they do about it? The father figured they should cut it down so they would never have heating problems again. They'd have enough wood for their grandchildren and even their great-grandchildren.
So said his wife:
- Oh, my dear husband, let us leave this tree! It is a real, beautiful miracle! Let's see what's on top of it!
All day and all night they wondered what to do with the oak tree. The next morning they decided that the father would climb the tree and see what was on top.
He set off, but he had to climb so high that it took him a month. His wife could no longer imagine what had happened to her husband. It was even luck that her husband always cut off a piece of branch and threw it down to let her know he was all right.
When he reached the top of the tree, he saw a miracle. This tree did not have green leaves, but beautiful shimmering colours of pink, gold, silver, red, blue, purple.
But that's not all! Little fairies lived on it. They were flying around. They were the good luck fairies. They told daddy that they would reward him for not cutting down the tree, because a lot of people would have done it that day when they saw how big it had grown. But he climbed up to see what the secret of this miracle tree might be: it was the fairies.
The father and his family were rewarded with a gold piece every day. This tree was not just any oak tree, for it produced a golden apple. From then on, no matter whether it was spring, summer, autumn or winter, a golden apple fell every day. And it will continue to do so until the tree is cut down, because this tree will never be old enough to die, nor will it be made sick by worms.
From that day on, the mother, the father, their child and all their descendants lived happily and prosperously ever after.
