Gardener | TELL ME A STORY: The Bronze Ring (a Central Asian Folktale)
Once upon a time there lived a gardener’s son who wished to marry the king’s daughter. She loved him, too, but the king was unhappy, for he wanted his daughter to marry the son of his prime minister.
The king’s wise men suggested a plan. “Send both suitors to a distant country. The man who first returns shall win the princess’s hand.”
The king agreed to the contest, but he gave the prime minister’s son a strong young horse and a purse full of gold, and he gave the gardener’s son a lame old horse and some copper coins.
“Off you go,” the king said. “Whichever man returns first shall marry the princess.”
“Be brave, and remember I love you,” the princess told the gardener’s son. “Come back quickly.”
The prime minister’s son galloped away and soon reached a fountain where a beggar woman called, “Good day, sir. Please help me. I’m dying of hunger.”
“Leave me alone,” said the prime minister’s son, and he and his horse pranced off.
That night the gardener’s son and the old horse reached the same fountain. When the beggar asked for help, he said, “Climb up behind me and come with me. I shall help you find food.”
Together they rode to a faraway kingdom. The prime minister’s son was there already, staying in a grand inn. The gardener and the old woman found shelter in a tumbledown shack.
In the morning the gardener’s son heard the local king’s heralds blowing their horns and crying, “Our king is ill and will reward anyone who returns the strength of youth to him.”
The old woman whispered instructions to the gardener’s son, and by following these to the letter, the gardener’s son cured the king. In return, just as the beggar woman had instructed, the gardener’s son asked for the king’s bronze ring. This was a ring with the power to give its owner anything he wanted.
The king did not want to give up his ring, but he had promised, and so the gardener’s son took his ring and wished himself, just as the beggar had instructed, a handsome ship of gold with silver masts and silken sails.
On this ship he sailed back home. The king was so impressed by the gardener’s son’s grandeur that he agreed to let him marry the princess.
For a long time everyone but the prime minister’s son was glad. But in that same city there lived an old man who had studied the black arts of magic. When he learned about the powers of the bronze ring, he longed to have it, and he began to plot.
One day, the gardener’s son set off on his golden ship to sail to a nearby island. That same day the old magician caught some beautiful red fish. He stood outside the palace, offering the fish for sale.
“I must have those!” said the princess when she saw the fish.
The old magician agreed to sell them, but in return he insisted she give him the bronze
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