THE LAUGHING PRINCE
A Book of Jugoslav Fairy Tales and Folk Tales
BY
PARKER FILLMORE
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND DECORATIONS
BY
JAY VAN EVEREN
TO BUTTON
NOTE
In calling this A Book of Jugoslav Fairy Tales and Folk Tales I have used the word Jugoslav in its literal sense of Southern Slav. The Bulgars are just as truly Southern Slavs as the Serbs or Croats or any other of the Slav peoples now included within the state of Jugoslavia. Moreover in this case it would be particularly difficult to make the literary boundaries conform strictly to the political boundaries since much the same stories and folk tales are current among all these Slav peoples of the Balkan Peninsula. The special student taking the variants of the same story might discover special differences that would mark each variant as the product of some one locality. The work of such a student would have philological and ethnological value but not a very strong appeal to the general reader. My appeal is first of all to the general reader—to the child who loves fairy tales and to the adult who loves them. I hope they will both find these stories entertaining and amusing quite aside from any interest in their source.
Yet these tales as presented do give the reader a true idea of the amazing vigor and the artistic inventiveness of the Jugoslav imagination, and also of the various influences, Oriental and Northern as well as Slavic, which have made that imagination what it is to-day. Here are gay picaresque tales of adventure—how they go on and on and on!—charming little stories of sentiment, a few folk tales of stark simplicity and grim humor, one story showing a superficial Turkish influence, and one spiritual allegory as deep and moving as anything in the Russian.
The renderings in every case are my own and are not in any sense translations. I have taken the old stories and retold them in a new language. To do them justice in this new language I have found it necessary to present them with a new selection of detail and with an occasional shifting of emphasis. I do not mean by this that I have invented detail in any unwarranted fashion. I haven’t had to for any folk tale, however bald, contains all sorts of things by implication. The true story teller, it seems to me, is he who is able to grasp these implications and turn them to his own use.
I must confess that the setting in which I have placed the famous old Serbian nonsense story, In my young days when I was an old, old man, is my own invention. The nonsense story needs a setting and as it chanced I had one ready as I have long wanted to tell the world what was back of the determination of that princess who refused to eat until some one had made her laugh.
So far as I know most of these stories are not familiar to English readers—certainly not in this form. Madame Mijatovich uses one of them in her Serbian Fairy Tales, but I make no apology for offering a sprightlier version. Nor do I apologize for presenting any stories that may have been included somewhere among the indifferent translations to which Andrew Lang lent his name.
I am of course deeply indebted to the various people who told me these stories in the first place and to many scholarly folklorists, Jugoslav, Czechoslovak, Bulgarian, German, and English whose books and reports I have studied.
Decoration Day, 1921. P. F.
THE LAUGHING PRINCE
The Story of the Boy Who Could Talk Nonsense
There was once a farmer who had three sons and one little daughter. The eldest son was a studious boy who learned so much out of books that the farmer said:
“We must send Mihailo to school and make a priest of him.”
The second boy was a trader. Whatever you had he would get it from you by offering you something else for it. And always what he gave you was worth less than what you gave him.
“Jakov will make a fine peddler,” the farmer said. “He’s industrious and sharp and some day he will probably be a rich man.”
But Stefan, the farmer’s youngest son, had no special talent and because he didn’t spend all his time with his nose in a book and because he never made the best of a bargain his brothers scorned him. Militza, his little sister, loved him dearly for he was kind and jolly and in the evening he was always ready to tell her stories and play with her. But the farmer, of course, listened to the older brothers.
“I don’t know about poor Stefan,” he used to say. “He’s a good boy but he talks nonsense. I suppose he’ll have to stay on the farm and work.”
Now the truth is the farm was a fine place for Stefan for he was strong and lusty and he liked to plow and harvest and he had a wonderful way with the animals. He talked to them as if they were human beings and the horses all whinnied when he came near, and the cows rubbed their soft noses against his shoulder, and as for the pigs—they loved him so much that whenever they saw him they used to run squealing between his legs.
“Stefan is nothing but a farmer!” Mihailo used to say as though being a farmer was something to be ashamed of.
And Jakov said:
“If the village people could see the pigs following him about, how they’d laugh at him! I hope when I go to the village to live he won’t be visiting me all the time!”
Another thing the older brothers couldn’t understand about Stefan was why he was always laughing and joking. He did the work of two men but whether he was working or resting you could always hear him cracking his merry jokes and laughing his jolly laugh.
“I think he’s foolish!” Mihailo said.
Jakov hoped that the village people wouldn’t hear about his carryings on.
“They’d laugh at him,” he said, “and they’d laugh at us, too, because we’re his brothers.”
But Stefan didn’t care. The more they frowned at him, the louder he laughed, and in spite of their dark looks he kept on cracking his merry jokes and talking nonsense. And every evening after supper his little sister, Militza, clapped her hands and cried:
“Now, Stefan, tell me a story! Tell me a story!”
“Father,” Mihailo would say, “you ought to make him keep quiet! He’s foolish and all he does is fill Militza’s head with nonsense!”
This always made Militza very indignant and she would stamp her little foot and say:
“He isn’t foolish! He knows more than any one! And he can do more things than any one else and he’s the handsomest brother in the world!”
You see Militza loved Stefan dearly and when you love a person of course you think that person is wonderful. But the father supposed that Mihailo must be right for Mihailo studied in books. So he shook his head and sighed every time he thought of Stefan.
Now the kingdom in which the three brothers lived was ruled over by a great Tsar who had an only daughter. In disappointment that he had no son, the Tsar was having his daughter brought up as though she were a boy. He sent all over the world for tutors and