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Main > Czechoslovak folktale > Fairy tale "The Golden Spinning-Wheel: The Story of King Dobromil and the Good Dobrunka"

The Golden Spinning-Wheel: The Story of King Dobromil and the Good Dobrunka

So today as she sat spinning she sang all the songs she knew, one after the other.

Suddenly she heard outside the trample of a horse. “Some one is coming,” she thought to herself, “someone who has lost his way in the woods. I’ll go see.”

She got up from her wheel and peeped out through the small window. A young man was just dismounting from a spirited horse.

“Oh,” thought Dobrunka to herself, “what a handsome young lord he is! How well his leather coat fits him! How well his cap with its white feather looks on his black hair! Ah, he is tying his horse and is coming in. I must slip back to my spinning.”

The next moment the young man opened the door and stepped into the kitchen. All this happened a long time ago, you see, when there were no locks or bars on the doors, and there didn’t have to be because nothing was ever stolen.

“Good day to you, my girl,” the young man said to Dobrunka.

“Good day, sir,” Dobrunka answered. “What is it, sir, you want?”

“Will you please get me a little water. I’m very thirsty.”

“Certainly,” Dobrunka said. “Won’t you sit down while I’m getting it?”

She ran off, got the pitcher, rinsed it out, and drew some fresh water from the well.

“I wish I could give you something better, sir.”

“Nothing could taste better than this,” he said, handing her back the empty pitcher. “See, I have taken it all.”

Dobrunka put the pitcher away and the young man, while her back was turned, slipped a leather bag, full of money, into the bed.

“I thank you for the drink,” he said, as he rose to go. “I’ll come again tomorrow if you’ll let me.”

“Come if you want to,” Dobrunka said, modestly.

He took her hand, held it a moment, then leaped upon his horse and galloped off.

Dobrunka sat down again to her wheel and tried to work, but her mind wandered. The image of the young man kept rising before her eyes and I have to confess that, for an expert spinner, she broke her thread pretty often.

Her mother came home in the evening full of praises of Zloboha, who, she said, was growing prettier day by day.

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