Once in a deep forest there was a wicked witch.
She had three young girls working for her. The wicked witch kept the three girls busy all the time and made them weave golden flax into yarn.
After the girls would weave the gold flax the witch would collect all the threads and take it away to an unknown location.
The three girls did not know what the witch did with the yarn or how she managed to get so much golden flax.
But they were always busy weaving.
The three young girls could speak with the birds and the animals of the forest because they could understand the speech of animals but beyond that the three girls spoke with no one else, other than each other and the witch.
The wicked witch warned the girls to keep their focus only on their work and not to speak to any stranger. The wicked witch even told them that if they did not follow either of the instructions, the gold yarn that they weaved would lose its shine and great tragedies would follow the girl who had disobeyed the witch.
A Prince from a far away kingdom was lost and he stumbled on the house where the three girls were working.
The first two girls avoided looking at the Prince because they remembered the instructions of the witch.
However the third girl was intrigued by the Prince and she talked with him and gave him good company as he ate the food that she had served him.
The king's soldiers who were searching for the missing Prince soon found the Prince in the girls’ hut.
The Prince promised to come back in nine days and save the girl from the witch.
However the witch came back to the hut before the Prince was back. She noticed the dullness in the gold yarn woven by the third girl and the witch immediately realized that the third girl had spoken to a stranger.
The girl was even more terrified because she remembered the witch’s warning and she feared that misfortunes would follow her and the Prince.
She immediately talked with the raven and asked the raven to fly to the Prince and warn him of the witches’ anger.
There was a Wind Wizard in the Prince’s kingdom. The Wind Wizard’s son could understand the speech of animals.
The raven told the Wind Wizard’s son the words of the girl.
In turn the Wind Wizard’s son told the prince everything.
The prince immediately came to the hut with his men.
He was silent and made sure that his horses did not gallop loudly. When he was not seen by the witch he carried away the third girl from the hut.
They were far away from the witch’s hut and were crossing a very narrow bridge on a raging river.
Meanwhile, using her magic powers the witch came to know what had happened to the third girl.
Then the witch created a magic ball with a spell.
The magic ball created a whirlwind in the sky and knocked the third girl out of the princes’ arm into a river across a narrow bridge through which they were traveling.
Horror stricken, the Prince wanted to jump inside the river after the girl into the raging waters.
However the prince’s soldiers stopped him from doing anything foolish.
For the next six days the Prince was taken back to his castle where he refused food and drinks and craved for his lover.
The king wanted to help the prince and he sent for all the wizards in the Kingdom.
The wizards asked the king to bring the great Wizard of Finland to help the Prince.
The great wizard of Finland looked at the Prince and realized what was wrong with him and he explained to the king that the Prince could be cured only if he went back to the place where he had lost his lover because the magic ball had taken away his lover.
However the Prince was not able to do that immediately.
He went to the narrow bridge nearly a year later.
He saw a water Lily in the exact same spot that his lover had met her end and he heard sorrowful cries from the water lily.
Realizing that his lover had been converted into a lily he went to the two girls in the witch's hut without being seen by the witch.
When he slept the first night in the hut the sisters baked a magic cake for the Prince.
When the Prince ate the cake he realized that he could understand the language of the birds.
Listening to the birds talking, the Prince realized that the great Wizard of Finland could help him.
The Prince then sent a message through a bird to the great wizard asking for advice on how he could bring his lover back as a human from her shape as a water lily.
The great Wizard of Finland, through an eagle, instructed the Prince to smear himself with mud and mutter the words ‘From a man into a crab’ and jump into the river.
That would change the Prince into a crab in the waters of the rivers.
Once in the river the Prince was to cut the roots off the lily and rise with the lily to the surface.
After he was to come to the surface with the lily the Prince was to say ‘From a crab into a man from a water Lily into a maiden.’
These words were to make both of them back to their normal human form.
The Prince followed the instructions of the great wizard of Finland and he was stunned to find that he and his lover were back to normal and the girl was now more beautiful than ever.
Though the Prince had been a crab only for a few hours, in the real world ten days had passed.
In his kingdom the king and the Queen feared that he was dead and they were weeping.
They were stunned when the Prince walked in with a beautiful maiden.
After he had married the girl the Prince then heard a crow talking to another crown, about how the prince had ungratefully forgotten the other two girls in the witch's hut.
The crow also told the other crow that the three girls were actually princesses and that the witch had stolen them during their childhood.
The Prince felt ashamed of forgetting the two girls.
He immediately went to the witch's hut.
This time the eldest girl baked a poisoned cake and kept it for the witch.
Soon after coming to the hut and seeing that the other two girls were missing, the witch saw the cake too.
Before looking into the missing girls the witch ate the poisoned cake.
She lay dead immediately.
The Prince and his wife and the two girls lived happily in the Prince’s castle, after getting all the gold thread which was hidden by the witch under the hut that they lived in.
Adapted from the Fairy Tales of Estonia
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