The Laughing Prince; A Book of Jugoslav Fairy Tales and Folk Tales. Fillmore Parker
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and a company of soldiers appeared. Their captain saluted Danilo respectfully and said:
“We are the servants of that magic pitcher. What does our master wish?”
“Magic pitcher?” stammered Danilo. “And am I your master?”
“Yes,” said the captain, “you are our master as long as you hold the magic pitcher in your hands.”
“You may disappear now,” Danilo said. “I will rub the pitcher when I need you.”
Delighted with this unexpected good fortune, he hurried off to the woods to the hut of the old woman who had befriended him before. He showed her the pitcher and demonstrated for her how it worked. Then he asked her to carry a message to Peerless Beauty.
“Tell her,” he said, “that unless she consents to marry me at once I’ll lead a mighty army against her, take her captive, and then send her off in exile to that howling wilderness which people call the Donkeys’ Paradise.”
“I will deliver your message,” the old woman said, “on condition that you promise me to be on your guard this time. Don’t let the maiden trick you again. She is under an enchantment that makes her cruel and crafty and the enchantment will never be broken until she meets a man upon whom her wiles have no effect.”
“Trust me this time,” Danilo said. “I’ve had my lesson.”
So the old woman delivered the message and when Peerless Beauty received it with scorn, Danilo at once set out for the castle with the magic pitcher in his hand. He began rubbing and every time he rubbed a company of soldiers appeared. Soon the castle was surrounded by a great army and in fright and dismay Peerless Beauty sent out word that she was ready to make an unconditional surrender.
When Danilo entered the castle he found her humble and meek.
“I have treated you cruelly,” she said. “Now I am in your power, do with me what you will.” And she began weeping softly until the sight of her tears drove Danilo distracted.
“Weep no more, dear lady!” he cried. “You have nothing to fear from me! I love you! I am your slave!”
The Peerless one slowly dried her tears.
“If you love me as you say you do, you will tell me by what magic you have raised this great army.”
Then Danilo, forgetting the old woman’s warning, took the magic pitcher out of his shirt and showed the maiden how it worked.
“Ah!” she murmured wonderingly. “It looks like any old pitcher! Please, Danilo, let me see it in my own hands.”
Danilo handed her the pitcher and, quick as a flash, she rubbed it. There was a clap of thunder, a company of soldiers appeared, and their captain saluting her respectfully said:
“What does the mistress of the pitcher want?”
“Nay!” cried Danilo, “it is I who own the pitcher, not she!”
“We are the servants,” the captain said, “of whoever holds the pitcher.”
At that Peerless Beauty laughed loud and scornfully until the castle rang with her merriment.
“Seize that wretch!” she said, pointing to Danilo. “Tie his hands and drive him out in exile to the Donkeys’ Paradise! Let him stay there until he has another treasure to present me!”
So they drove Danilo out to the wilderness and left him there.
He wandered about for many days hungry and thirsty, subsisting on roots and berries, and having for drink only the water that collected in the hoof prints of the wild beasts.
“See what I’ve come to!” he cried aloud. “Why didn’t I heed the old woman’s warning! If I had, I should have broken the evil enchantment that binds my Peerless Beauty and all would have been well!”
One day as he wandered about he came upon a vine that was laden with great clusters of luscious red grapes. He fell upon them ravenously and ate bunch after bunch. Suddenly he felt something in his hair and lifting his hands he found that horns had grown out all over his head.
“Fine grapes these are!” he exclaimed, “to bring out horns on a person’s head!”
However, he was so hungry that he kept on eating until his head was one mass of horns.
The next day he found a vine that had clusters of white grapes. He began eating the white grapes and he hadn’t finished a bunch before the horns all fell off his head.
“Ha!” he said. “The red grapes put horns on and the white grapes take them off! That’s a trick worth knowing!”
He took some reeds and fashioned two baskets one of which he filled with red grapes and the other with white grapes. Then staining his face with the dark juice of a leaf until he looked brown and sunburned like a countryman, he went back to Peerless Beauty’s castle. There he marched up and down below the Peerless one’s window crying his wares like a huckster:
“Sweet grapes for sale! Who wants my fresh sweet grapes!”
Now it was not the season for grapes, so Peerless Beauty when she heard the cry was surprised and said to her serving maid:
“Go quickly and buy me some grapes from that huckster and mind you don’t eat one yourself!”
The serving maid hurried out to Danilo and he sold her some of the red grapes. As she carried them in, she couldn’t resist the temptation of slipping a few into her mouth. Instantly some horns grew out on her head.
“That’s to punish me for disobeying my mistress!” the poor girl cried. “Oh, dear, what shall I do?”
She was afraid to show herself to Peerless Beauty, so she pretended she was taken sick and she went to bed and pulled the sheet over her head and sent in the grapes by another serving maid.
Peerless Beauty ate them all before she discovered their frightful property. Then there was a great to-do, and cries of anger and of fright, and a quick sending out of the guards to find the huckster. But the huckster had disappeared.
What could Peerless Beauty do now? She tried to pull the horns out but they wouldn’t come. She tried to cut them off but they resisted the edge of the sharpest knife. She was too proud to show herself with horns, so she swathed her head with jewels and ribbons and pretended she was wearing an elaborate head-dress.
Then she sent heralds through the land offering a huge reward to any one who could cure her serving maid of some strange horns that had grown out on her head. You see she thought if she could get hold of some one who would cure the maid, then she could make him cure her, too.
Well, doctors and quacks and all sorts of people came and tried every kind of remedy, but all in vain. The horns stayed firmly rooted.
A whole week went by and when the last of the quacks had come and gone, Danilo, disguised as an old physician, presented himself and craved audience with the Peerless one. He carried two small jars in his hands one of which was filled with a conserve made from the white grapes and the other with a conserve made from the red grapes.
Peerless Beauty, her horns swathed in silk and gleaming with jewels, received him coldly.
“Are you one more quack?” she asked.
“Not a quack,” he said, bowing low, “but a man who has happened upon a strange secret of nature. I can cure your serving maid of her horns provided she confess to me all her misdeeds and hand over to me anything she has that does not belong to her.”
Peerless Beauty had him shown to the room where the serving maid lay in bed. The poor frightened girl at once confessed that she had stolen a few of her mistress’s grapes and eaten them. Danilo spoke kindly to her, gave her some of the white grape conserve, and as soon as she had tasted it the horns of course dropped off.
Thereupon Peerless Beauty led Danilo to her own chamber, ordered all her people out, and then