Once upon a time, across seven hundred and seventeen countries, there was a handsome lad. He married a beautiful maiden, but they were both so poor that neither had anything but the clothes they had put on. The maiden had an aunt, and she gave them a hen as a present. The other neighbours and relatives brought eggs and flour, as is the custom at weddings.
When the wedding is over, the young man hears the hen start to peck at him:
- Koty-koty-koty...
He says to the young woman:
- You know what I thought?
- What?
- "Let's plant this hen," he says, "there are eggs enough, let's put nineteen eggs under her, and when she hatches, she'll have twenty with her. We'll raise them, and when they're big, we'll sell the twenty hens and buy a piglet. We'll raise that one too, and it will have nine piglets. We sell the ten pigs, and then we can buy a horse, a harness and a cart. We'll sit up together and go trading. Do you agree?
- Bele.
They got a basket, and put a little gizmo in it, and put nineteen eggs in it, and put the hen on it, and put it under the bed. They sat down on the bed, and began to talk and rejoice there, how it would be, and how it would be.
You take out paper and pencil and begin to calculate that a horse can be bought for so much and so much, a harness for so much and a cart for so much, ten pigs can be sold for so much. But the calculation was not done. He says to the woman:
- Woman, there's trouble!
- What kind?
- "Well," he says, "we can buy a cart and a harness, but we can only afford one weak horse, because look how much money we get for the pigs.
The woman says:
- Well, that's okay, it'll get stronger.
- Well, it will get stronger if we feed it well, but at first we can only get on the cart where the road is straight, where we have to go uphill, we have to get off, because the horse can't get off if it's weak.
The woman says to the man:
- You get off, but I don't!
The man says:
- Yes, you can, you're getting off too!
- I'm not getting off!
- Get off!
- I'm not getting off! They had such a fight that the man lost his temper, jumped up and asked the woman:
- Are you getting off or not?
- I'm not getting off!
Then the man, in his anger, took hold of the woman, and pushed her so hard that - yup! - she leaned against the bed. The bed was smashed, and the eggs were smashed to pieces, and the clogger fled as fast as he could.
They have endured the hatchet and the eggs, and live to this day as well as they can, if they are not dead.
(Ágnes Kovács: Folk tales for kindergarten children)
