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Main > Ukrainian folktales > Fairy tale "Oh: The Tsar of the Forest"

Oh: The Tsar of the Forest

what a nice ring I have found!” The Tsar kissed her, but the Tsarivna did not know which finger it would suit best, it was so lovely.

About the same time they told the Tsar that a certain merchant had come to the palace. It was Oh, who had changed himself into a merchant. The Tsar went out to him and said, “What dost thou want, old man?”––“I was sailing on the sea in my ship,” said Oh, “and carrying to the Tsar of my own land a precious garnet ring, and this ring I dropped into the water. Has any of thy servants perchance found this precious ring?”––“No, but my daughter has,” said the Tsar. So they called the damsel, and Oh began to beg her to give it back to him, “for I may not live in this world if I bring not the ring,” said he. But it was of no avail, she would not give it up.

Then the Tsar himself spoke to her. “Nay, but, darling daughter, give it up, lest misfortune befall this man because of us; give it up, I say!” Then Oh begged and prayed her yet more, and said, “Take what thou wilt of me, only give me back the ring.”––“Nay, then,” said the Tsarivna, “it shall be neither mine nor thine,” and with that she tossed the ring upon the ground, and it turned into a heap of millet-seed and scattered all about the floor. Then Oh, without more ado, changed into a cock, and began pecking up all the seed. He pecked and pecked till he had pecked it all up. Yet there was one single little grain of millet which rolled right beneath the feet of the Tsarivna, and that he did not see. When he had done pecking he got upon the window-sill, opened his wings, and flew right away.

But the one remaining grain of millet-seed turned into a most beauteous youth, a youth so beauteous that when the Tsarivna beheld him she fell in love with him on the spot, and begged the Tsar and Tsaritsa right piteously to let her have him as her husband. “With no other shall I ever be happy,” said she; “my happiness is in him alone!” For a long time the Tsar wrinkled his brows at the thought of giving his daughter to a simple youth; but at last he gave them his blessing, and they crowned them with bridal wreaths, and all the world was bidden to the wedding-feast.

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