ONCE upon a time there was a poor farmer who had three sons, and the sons’ names were Peter, Paul, and Philip. None of the three liked work very well, and instead of helping their father they spent most of their time sauntering about. At last Peter heard that the king wanted a keeper to watch his rabbits. So the youth told his father that he would go to the king’s palace and apply for the position.
“I doubt if you are fitted for just that sort of work,” said his father. “He who keeps the king’s rabbits needs to be light and quick, and no lazy-bones. You could not loiter when the rabbits began to skip and frisk, for if you dawdled as you do at home you would be discharged.”
But the father’s advice had no effect. Peter was determined to go, and after filling a bag with something to eat and drink and a few other necessaries, he took the bag on his back and started. He had not traveled many miles when he heard a voice calling for help. On going in the direction of the sound he found an old woman in a pit from which she was unable to climb out. “Don’t stand there staring,” said she sharply. “Reach me your hand and pull me up. I have been in this pit a whole year, and in all that time I have not had a morsel of food.”
“What!” exclaimed Peter, “a whole year, do you say? Then you must be a witch, or you could not fast so long, and I will have nothing to do with you.”
So off he marched. At length he arrived at the king’s palace and was engaged as the keeper of the rabbits. He was promised plenty of food and good pay and maybe the princess into the bargain, for the king had decreed that any keeper who took such good care of the rabbits that not one of them escaped should have the princess for his wife.
The next day Peter let the rabbits out to browse. As long as they were near the stables and in the adjacent open fields he kept them in one flock, but toward evening they got into a wood and began to scuttle about among the trees. Peter ran after them this way and that until he had no breath left for any more running. He could not get the rabbits together. They all disappeared, and he saw nothing more of them.
After resting a while he started to go back to the palace. As he went along he kept a sharp look-out, and he stopped to call his fugitive charges at every fence. But no rabbits came, and when he reached the palace there stood the king waiting for him. It was plain that Peter had failed, and for a punishment he was banished from the country.
The king presently got a new lot of rabbits, and then he let it be known that he wanted a keeper. Peter’s brother Paul heard of this, and nothing would do but he must try for the place. Away he went, and by and by he found the old woman in the pit just as Peter had, and he would not help her out. When he got to the palace he was promptly engaged as keeper of the rabbits, and the next day he let them out to feed. All went well until in the late afternoon they went from the fields into the woods. Then they skipped and hopped away, and though he rushed about and raced after them till he was ready to drop, they all escaped. So he returned to the palace without a rabbit, and the king ordered that he should leave the country.
More rabbits were obtained to replace those lost, and again word went forth that his Majesty wanted a keeper for them. Philip, the youngest of the three brothers, heard of this and concluded to apply for the job. “It will be just the right work for me,” he said to his father. “I would like nothing better than to spend my days in the fields and woodlands watching the rabbit flock, and I would be sure to have plenty of time to nap on the sunny hillsides.”
“I fear,” said the old farmer, “that you will fare no better than your two brothers. The person who keeps the king’s rabbits must not be like a fellow with leaden soles to his shoes, or like a fly in a tar-pot.”
“Well,” responded Philip, “however things may turn out, I shall get the job if I can. Surely it will be no harder than to take care of the calf and goat here at home.”
So he packed his bag, lifted it to his shoulder, and started for the palace of the king. He trudged along until he heard a voice calling, and when he looked about he saw the old woman in the pit. “Good day, grandmother,” said he, “what can I do for you?”
“Help me out of this hole,” she said, “and give me something to eat. I will do you a good turn afterward, you may depend on it.”
He was willing enough, and he pulled her out of the pit. Then he opened his bag and sat down to eat and drink with her. She had a keen appetite after her long fast, and naturally got the lion’s share, but that did not trouble Philip any. As soon as they finished, she gave him a magic horn, and said: “If you blow into the small end of it, whatever you wish away will be scattered to the four winds; and if you blow into the large end the things you wish near will at once come about you. Should the horn ever be lost or taken from you, all you have to do is to wish for it, and it will return to you.”
“Very good,” responded Philip. “Such a horn is worth having.”
So saying, he resumed his walk, and at length he came to the king’s palace. He was hired to keep the rabbits, and he was much pleased, for he was certain of good food and generous wages, and if he were clever enough not to lose any of the rabbits he might win the princess, too. The next morning he began work, and at first he found the task an easy one. As long as the rabbits were in the lanes and fields they behaved very well, but while he was eating his noon lunch they wandered to the woodland, where they frisked about and scampered away into the underbrush.
“Ho, ho!” cried Philip, “you want to leave me, do you? Well, off with you then,” and he blew into the small end of the magic horn.
Immediately they were all gone from view, and Philip found a mossy spot to his liking and lay down to sleep till eventide. The sun was low in the west when he awoke, and he took up his horn and blew into the large end of it. At once the rabbits came frolicking about him, and he led them like a flock of sheep to the king’s palace. The king, the queen, and the princess, too, all came out on the porch and wondered how he contrived to manage the rabbits so well. Several times the king counted them to make sure they were all there and he had to acknowledge that not one was missing.
“That rabbit-keeper would be a fine lad,” said the princess, “if only he was of noble birth.”
The next day he took the rabbits out again, and when they roamed to the woodland he lay down in the shade at the edge of the wood close to the sunny slope where the wild strawberries grew and scented the air with their sweet odor.
The king was curious to learn how the youth contrived to control the rabbits so admirably, and he sent a servant to watch him. By and by the servant came peeping about among the trees and spied Philip asleep in the pleasant shade of the woodland. He hid in a thicket and waited. Toward evening he saw Philip rise to his feet and blow his horn, and immediately all the rabbits came scampering about him. The servant hastened home and told the king what he had observed, and the king told his wife and daughter.
“Unless we put a stop to his using that horn,” said the princess, “I shall have to marry him, and he is only a common farmer’s son. Tomorrow I shall go to the wood, and while he is asleep I will take his horn and bring it home to the palace.”
She went to the wood just as she had planned, and she had little trouble in getting possession of the horn. When Philip awoke it was gone—and how was he to bring the rabbits together? But he remembered that the old woman had said he could get it back by wishing. So he wished for it; and the princess, who had nearly reached the palace, felt it suddenly slip through her fingers, and though she searched all about she could not find it. The horn had returned to the hands of Philip in the woodland, and he immediately blew it to fetch the rabbits together, and then he went with them to the palace.
Philip blows into the large end of his horn
The royal family saw that Philip had the horn, and the queen said she would go the next day and take it, and they might be sure she would bring it home. The morrow came, and in the early afternoon off she tramped to the wood. She secured the horn and hurried away with it, holding it very tight, but as she approached the palace it slipped from her grasp, and by and by the rabbit-keeper returned with his horn and flock as usual.
“I shall have to look into this matter myself,” grumbled the king, “if we are going to get that wretched horn into our possession. You women plan all right, but it usually takes a man to carry a plan to a successful conclusion.”
The following day, while Philip was having his nap in the wood, the king came to the spot where the youth lay and took the horn. To make doubly sure of it, the king put the horn in a bag he had brought along for the purpose. Back he went to the palace. His wife and daughter met him at the door, and he triumphantly opened the bag to show them the horn; but it was not there. He had not succeeded any better than the women folk. “Plague take the fellow!” he exclaimed. “There is some magic about the way that horn disappears. The lad gets the best of us every time, and I suppose he might as well marry into the family first as last.”
Pretty soon Philip arrived with his flock of rabbits and put them in their night quarters. Then he heard the king calling to him, and went to the palace porch, where he found all the royal family waiting for him. “What sort of a horn is that of yours?” asked the king. “It looks ordinary enough, but I am sure it has some strange power or you would not be able to take such excellent care of the rabbits and never lose a single one of them.”
“It was given to me by an old woman,” said Philip, “and if I blow in one end it does one thing, and if I blow in the other it does the opposite.”
“Oh, bother your explanations!” cried the king. “Show us its power, and then we shall understand.”
“But perhaps the showing would not please your Majesty,” said Philip.
“Stuff and nonsense!” the king exclaimed. “I said, ‘Show us.’ Who is king here—you or me? It is my business to command, and it is yours to obey.”
“Very well,” responded Philip, “then I wish you to scatter;” and he blew a good strong blast into the little end of his horn.
At once the king, very much against his will, and kicking savagely, was hurried off north, the queen flew east, and the princess west, and a little kitchen-maid, who had come up behind Philip and was looking on, was hustled off south in such sudden haste it seemed to her she would be scared out of a year’s growth.
“Stop me, you rascal! Bring me back!” yelled the king as he vanished in the distance.
Philip turned the horn about and blew into the big end. In a few moments the king and the others were back on the porch; and the little maid, vastly astonished by her experiences, lost no time in escaping to the kitchen. “What do you mean by treating me in that fashion?” the king demanded. “You shall hang for it.”
Philip raised the little end of the horn to his lips, and the king, fearful that he would have to repeat his wild race, called out: “Enough! enough! The fault was mine. You shall have my daughter and half the kingdom if only you won’t blow that horrible horn in my presence. I’m too old and stiff to be dashing about over the country as I did just now.”
So as soon as things could be made ready for a grand wedding, Philip married the princess, and they lived happily the rest of their days.