Once upon a time, not so very far away, on the other side of the Peruvian Sea, there lived a poor widow and her only son, the blond-haired, rosy-faced Jani.
This poor widow lived a quiet and meagre life, and would have been content with her lot, but she had one great sorrow.
What was it that caused the poor widow so much grief? Nothing but the fact that her son was a child of a very teasing nature. When he saw an elderly man in the pool, he would quickly stick out his tongue and run away.
He also liked to call his friends all sorts of strange names. He called one of his mates Lajci the Mouth of a Moth, another Misha the Stork's Foot, and a fat one he called Maty the Bumpy.
When he met them on the beach, he was quick to call them names:
- "Nini, here comes the Mouth of the Shroud," he shouted with a great sneer, "and here comes the Bumpy Bumpy.
Then he showed a donkey's ear and strode off like a gale, for surely he would have got a punch or two from his angry mates if he had stayed.
One fine day, our Janink was walking on the outskirts of town when he was confronted by a bent, grey, old man. But this stooped old man had a strange face too. A big, broad, grey nose and long, pointed paddle ears.
Of course, our Janink couldn't help but scoff.
- "Uncle Donkey-eared," he cried, laughing mockingly, "ha-ha-ha, Uncle Donkey-eared!
Then a strange thing happened. The old man stopped, pointed his finger at Jani and exclaimed:
- Ia, Ia, Ia. You're an ass yourself, little brother.
Well, our Janink turned into a big-eared donkey in the blink of an eye. Of course, he didn't have a mirror, so he couldn't see for himself what an ugly, big-eared donkey he had become.
The bell was just ringing, so Jani set off home, knowing that his mother was waiting for him with a delicious chicken soup for lunch.
- Well, well, well, here goes an orphaned donkey - said the passers-by, shaking their heads, when they saw the boy turned donkey, - what is an orphaned donkey doing in the city?
His buddies came across the street, Lajcsi the Mouth of the Butterfly, Misi the Stork's Foot, and Matyi the Bumpy. Of course, they didn't recognise our Janinka in the face of the pious eavesdropper.
Jani mockingly stuck out his tongue to shout obscenities, but all he could shout was:
- Yay, yay, yay!
Because donkeys cannot speak the language of man. So Jani came home to his parents' house, walked through the door into the room, and there was the delicious soup simmering on the table. Jani was just about to sit down to it, because he was hungry, when his mother came in, clasped her hands and said:
- Get out of the room, you ugly ass!
With that, he took a broom and chased the ear out into the pool. For, needless to say, how could he have recognised his blond-haired son in the ugly ear.
And Jani walked mournfully down the street, the passers-by chased him away, the little children said in mockery:
- Donkey with ears, donkey with ears!
Of course, our Janink didn't know why they were shouting this after him, because he didn't know yet that he had been turned into a common grey donkey by the stooped old man.
When he reached the bank of the river, he was thirsty, so he bent down to drink, and in the mirror of the water he saw his own donkey's head, horrified. Now he suddenly understood why everyone was shouting after him: "Donkey with ears!
Shedding bitter tears, she went on her way, walking and walking, until she came to a large lake. On the shore of the lake he saw a little house. In this little house lived a hundred-year-old mother-in-law who collected copper.
He pushed the door with his eavesdropping nose and said sadly:
- Yay, yay, yay!
- 'Good of you to come, girl,' said the hundred-year-old mother-in-law, 'I'm just going to pick some grass. I can only carry so much on my frail old back, so I'll load you with it. It's going to be great.
They went out to collect grass, and in the meantime the hundred-year-old mother-in-law was also bending down for all kinds of grass. Every time she pulled me down from the grass, she would cry out:
If you eat the magic grass,
An ear for a man becomes an ear for a donkey.
Jani remembered this saying well and when he had loaded his back with so much rattan that his eared feet were just crumbling, they started walking home.
At home, the old woman tied the donkey up in the stable, put the magic grass to dry over the manger, and she went into the house and went to bed.
And our Janink didn't care for the fine feed, because he wasn't a real donkey after all. He kept on until the istrang, with which the hundred-year-old old mother tied him to the manger, broke. Then he took the magic grass with his mouth and cried:
If you eat the magic grass,
An ear for a man becomes an ear for a donkey.
Well, sir, in that minute, he felt his spine straighten, his front hooves grow hands and his ears shrink back.
He looked at himself in the stream and wept bitterly with happiness when he saw that he had turned back into a man-boy again.
He left home immediately and returned in the morning to his worried mother, who wept tears of joy at the sight of her lost son.
