When the servant reached the next kingdom there was a man riding on a horseback.
The man beat a drum and cried out aloud. "The king wants to marry his daughter. But the person who approaches to win her hand has to perform a hard task. If he fails he shall be put to death."
After talking to the others in the kingdom the servant learnt that many other people before him had tried and had failed at fulfilling the hard task.
That very night the servant saw the beautiful princess on the terrace of the castle. He was overwhelmed by her beauty and decided to try his luck at whatever hard task the king had said for him.
That day he was led to the seashore. The king’s soldiers rowed a boat to the middle of the sea where the sea was deep and dropped a gold ring into the sea. The challenge for the young man was to fetch the ring from the bottom of the sea.
When everyone heard this they were sure that the handsome young man who had decided to try his luck was going to meet his end.
The young man himself stood on the shore of the sea and wondered what to do when three fishes swam up to him.
The young man was stunned because these were the very same fishes that he had saved.
One of the fishes in the middle had a mussel in its mouth.
When the man took the mussel from the fish’s mouth, he found a gold ring.
The man happily took the ring to the king because he had fulfilled the hard task given to him. However the princess was very proud when she realized that the man who had won the challenge was not equal to her in rank, so she refused to marry the man.
She set another condition for the young man.
The next morning she threw 10 sacks of millet on the grass.
She wanted the man to pick all of it by the next morning.
The young man did not know what to do.
However this time the ants came to rescue the young man. The ant king and his whole army were able to separate the millets and put them in sacks in a single night.
The princess was stunned that the man had done what she had asked of him.
But she still did not want to marry this man. She asked the young man to get an apple from the Tree of Life. She said that she would marry the man only after he got the apple.
The young man kept walking because he had no idea where the Tree of Life would be.
He was tired from walking for a long distance and slept under a tree. At that time there was some rustling from the branches on the tree and the young man was shocked when a golden apple fell in his hand.
The young man saw the three ravens whom he had saved on the branches of the tree. “We know where the tree of life stands and we have got the apple for you.”
The young man was very happy and took the apple back to the princess.
The princess had no more conditions and she realized that this man could get anything done. The young man and the princess cut the apple and shared it and married each other and lived happily ever after.
Adapted from the Grimm Brothers folktales
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