The Two Travellers
A shoemaker and a tailor met while travelling. The cheerful tailor sang a mocking song about the shoemaker's trade, angering him. The tailor offered a drink to make peace, and they decided to journey together.
They had little to eat. In towns, the likable tailor found more work and shared his earnings. The shoemaker grew resentful.
Entering a vast forest with two paths, they disagreed on provisions. The shoemaker packed bread for a week; the optimistic tailor took only two days' worth. The tailor's bread ran out on the third day. As his hunger grew, the pitiless shoemaker demanded the tailor's right eye for a piece of bread, and later his left eye for another, leaving him blind before abandoning him at a gallows.
Despairing, the blind tailor fell asleep. At dawn, he overheard two hanged men say that dew from the gallows could restore sight. He moistened his handkerchief with the dew and washed his eye sockets, regaining his vision with new, healthy eyes. Grateful, he continued his journey.
He showed kindness to several creatures: he freed a young foal, spared a stork, released a duckling, and left a beehive undisturbed.
He arrived in the capital, became a renowned tailor, and was appointed court-tailor. The shoemaker, now the court-shoemaker and consumed by guilt, plotted against him.
The shoemaker tricked the King three times, setting impossible tasks for the tailor:
1. To retrieve the lost golden crown from a pond. The ducks he had helped brought it up for him.
2. To create a wax replica of the entire royal palace. The bees he spared built a perfect model overnight.
3. To make a crystal-clear fountain spring up in the castle courtyard. The horse, which was the grown foal he freed, created the fountain by stamping the ground.
Finally, the shoemaker claimed the tailor boasted he could bring the King a son through the air. The stork he had spared delivered a baby prince to the Queen. As a reward, the tailor married the King's eldest daughter.
The wicked shoemaker was banished. On his way, exhausted and furious, he rested near the gallows. The crows from the hanged men pecked out his eyes. He ran madly into the forest and was never seen again.