There was once a poor woman who was, and sometimes was not, even across seventeen countries. And this poor woman had three sons. They were as poor as the mice of the church. They boiled with water, and with sticks they plucked at it, and lived from one day to the next. One day the boys got fed up with this miserable life and decided to leave home.
The eldest once says to his mother:
- Mother, bake me some scones in ashes, because I'm going to try my luck.
And the poor woman cooks, and the lad goes out into the world. He goes, he goes against the world, through hill and valley, and comes to a sweet well. He settles down beside it, takes out an ash-baked scone, and begins to eat. As he sits there, suddenly a little mouse sneaks up and says:
- Do you hear, poor lad, give me some of that scone, it's just seven days since I had a bite to eat.
- "I don't mind," said the lad, "if you haven't eaten for seventy-seven days, but I'll have enough.
Then the mouse squeaks sadly, crawls into a hole, and the lad walks on. On and on he went, until he came to the city of a king. He went straight to the king's palace, sat down in front of the gate and waited for good luck. Then the king himself came out of the gate, saw the lad, greeted him and asked him:
- What are you doing here, poor lad?
- Surely I, my majesty, if I could find service anywhere, would seek it.
The King says:
- Come in, poor lad, I have a hundred rabbits in my yard, and I'll leave them to you. Drive them out into the field, and keep them so safe that if one should perish, the rabbits and your head...
The next morning the lad brought out the hundred rabbits. But sure enough, as soon as they got out into the field, the hundred ran in a hundred directions. The lad was terribly frightened, he dared not even look towards the king's palace, he ran away and did not stop until he reached home. He told at home where he had been, where he had been, what had happened to him.
Here the second lad came forward to try his luck. He bets heavily that he will save those hundred rabbits, if he lives that long. But he was like the eldest boy. He sat down for a snack at the cute little fountain. The mouse asked him for a bit of the ash-baked scone, but he didn't give it to him either. Then he went on till he came to the king's city, He went to the king's house, but as soon as he had sent the rabbits out into the field the first morning, O, a hundred rabbits ran a hundred ways again. And the middle boy went home, too, very sad.
Now the youngest boy was the one who had been stalking him, to see if he would be better served. His mother bakes him a cake as big as a big wheel of tallow, and with it he goes out into the world. He goes, he goes, he goes, and he comes to the lovely well. And as he's walking along, the mouse runs up to him and asks him very nicely to give him a piece of cake, for God's sake, in God's name, because he hasn't eaten for fourteen days.
- With a good heart, you little mouse, perhaps the good Lord will help me not to have to live on this scone for long.
The little mouse thanks him and says:
- Well, poor lad, expect good instead of evil. I have asked of thy two brothers, and neither hath given. But God has not helped either.
Then he ran into the hole and brought a small horn with him.
- 'I give you this horn,' said the mouse, 'take it, it may be of use to you.
- Come on, what can I do with this? - asks the lad.
- 'Just take it away,' said the mouse, 'and whatever danger you're in, finger it and all bad things will turn to good.
- "Well," thinks the poor lad to himself, "if it doesn't do any good, it can't do any harm. I'll take it with me. So he put it in his bag and went on his way, not stopping till he reached the king's city and the gate of the king's palace.
He settles down at the gate, and suddenly the king comes.
- What are you doing here, poor lad? - asks the king.
He tells us what he is working on, that he would like to serve in a good place.
- "You've come to the right place," says the king. "I have a hundred rabbits, and I need a good shepherd to tend them, because I haven't found one I like yet.
They shake hands at once, but the king also binds the lad's hand, so that not one of the rabbits is lost, for the rabbits and his head...
Okay. The next morning the lad goes out into the field with a hundred rabbits. But they can't even smell the grass, the rabbits run as fast as they can.
- Hey! - cries the lad - what am I to do now? He thinks of the horn, reaches for it, runs for it, and all at once the hundred rabbits turn and run together like a bunch of sheep.
The king sees this from the porch of the palace, shakes his head, and cannot imagine how the boy gathered those rabbits.
- Wait a minute, he thought to himself, he's still going to miss at least one out of a hundred. If for no other reason, I will try. In a moment he will order a servant to go out into the field with a sack and ask the shepherd for a rabbit in the king's name.
The girl goes out and asks for the rabbit, but the lad says that he will not give it, not even in the king's name, because his head is dear to him.
- 'But so,' says the girl, 'there will be a party at the house, and the king will have both their heads if there is no rabbit on the table.
In the meantime, from nowhere, from nowhere, the little mouse suddenly appears and says to the lad:
- Just give me one; don't be afraid. Leave the rest to me!
The lad listens to the mouse, suddenly he catches a rabbit by the ear, puts it in the sack and the girl goes off with it. At that very moment the mouse leaps up into the sack, and as the girl steps a hundred paces, she cuts off the end of the sack. The rabbit jumps out and runs back to the others. And the mouse leapt down from the sack, and suddenly picked up a piece of turf, and threw it into the sack, and the girl went home without noticing anything.
The evening is coming. The lad goes home and puts the hundred rabbits through the big gate. And the king comes angrily, shouting, and the court is shaking in his face.
- Jere, jere, what have you sent me in a bag?
- 'Rabbit, my lord king,' says the lad.
Call the maid.
- What has the shepherd given you, girl?
- My life and my death, my serene king, in your hands, have given me a true rabbit.
- "Hm," says the king, "I never heard such a thing in my life; where is the rabbit now?
They read the rabbit army once, twice, three times, but not one of the hundred was enough.
- "Do you hear, poor lad," says the king, "I never had such a shepherd to send me a rabbit, and yet not one of the rabbits entrusted to him was missing. Tell me, then, what is your wish?
- Just a sack of money, sire, for there is great poverty at home.
The king immediately measured out a large bag of money, put twelve oxen in a cart and drove them home. There was joy at home that even! They are still alive, if they are not dead.
(Vilmos Radó: Hungarian Children's and Folk Tales, First Collection - Singer and Wolfner Publishing; Budapest, Andrássy út 10, VI.)
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