THERE was once a poor man who had four sons, and when they were grown up, he said to them: “Dear children, you must go out into the world now, for I have nothing to give you. It is my wish that you should each learn a trade by which you can gain a comfortable livelihood, if not wealth.”
So the four brothers took their walking-staffs in their hands, bid their father good-by, and tramped away down the street and passed out of the town gate. After they had traveled some distance, they came to where four roads branched away from the one they were tramping. “Here we must part,” said the eldest brother, “but four years from this day we will meet here again, and tell each other what we have accomplished.”
Then each went his own way, and the eldest presently met a man, who asked him where he was going and what he intended to do.
“I want to learn a trade,” the youth answered.
“Then come with me and learn to be a thief,” said the man.
“No,” responded the youth, “that is no longer considered an honorable employment; and in the end I should swing as the clapper in the field bell.”
“Oh, you need not fear the gallows!” said the man. “I will only teach you how to take things that no one else wants or knows how to get hold of, and I will make you so expert that nobody can find you out.”
So the youth allowed himself to be persuaded, and he became, under the man’s instruction, such a clever thief that nothing was safe from him which he had once made up his mind to have.
Meanwhile the second brother had met a man who put the same question to him as to whither he was going and what he intended to do.
“I don’t know yet,” answered the youth.
“Then come with me and be a star-gazer,” the man advised. “It is the grandest trade in the world, for you gain the power to see everything.”
The youth was pleased with the idea, and he became such an expert star-gazer that, when he finished his apprenticeship, his master gave him a telescope, and said, “With this you can see all that happens in the sky and on the earth, and nothing can remain hidden from you.”
The third brother was taken in hand by a huntsman, and received such instruction in the art of shooting that he became a first-rate marksman. When he had learned all there was to learn and was ready to depart, his master presented him with a gun, and said, “Whatever you aim at with this gun you will hit without fail.”
The youngest brother met a man who asked him if he would like to be a tailor.
“I don’t know about that,” said the youth. “I haven’t much fancy for sitting cross-legged from morning till night, and everlastingly pulling a needle in and out.”
“There, there!” said the man, “you don’t know what you are talking about. You will find that tailoring as I teach it is easy. It will be pleasant to you and win you honor.”
The youth allowed himself to be persuaded, and went with the man, who taught him tailoring very thoroughly. At length the time came for him to depart, and his master gave him a needle and said, “With that you will be able to stitch anything, even a thing as tender as an egg-shell, or one as hard as steel, and no seam will be visible after you are through.”
On the very day that the four years agreed on came to an end the four brothers met at the place where they had parted, and after embracing each other they hurried home to their father.
“Well,” said he, quite pleased to see them, “so the wind has blown you back to me.”
They sat under a big tree in the yard and told him all that had happened to them. When they finished, their father said, “Now I will put your accomplishments to the test, and see what you can do.”
He looked up into the tree and said to his second son: “There is a chaffinch’s nest up there on the topmost branch. Tell me how many eggs there are in it.”
The star-gazer took his telescope, looked through it, and said, “There are five.”
“Fetch the eggs down,” said the father to his eldest son, “and be careful not to disturb the mother bird, who is sitting on them.”
The cunning thief climbed the tree, and removed the five eggs from underneath the bird so deftly that she never noticed what he had done, and he brought them down to his father. The father took them and put one on each corner of a table, and the fifth in the middle, and said to the huntsman, “You must cut all those eggs in half at one shot.”
The huntsman aimed and divided each egg in half at one shot, as his father desired. He certainly must have had some of the powder that shoots round a corner. The eggs had little birds in them, and the neck of each had been severed by the bullet.
“Now it is your turn,” said the father to the fourth son. “I expect you to sew the birds and the shells together so they will be none the worse for that shot.”
The tailor produced his needle, and stitched away as his father had desired. When he finished the task, the thief climbed the tree with the eggs, and put them back under the bird without her perceiving him. The bird continued to sit on the eggs, and a few days later the fledgelings crept out of the shells. Each had a red streak round its neck where the tailor had sewn them together, but were none the worse otherwise.
“I can certainly praise your skill,” said the father to his sons. “You have used your time well while you have been away, and you have all acquired very useful knowledge.”
Not long after this a great lamentation was made in the country because the king’s daughter had been carried away by a dragon. The king was overcome by grief and sorrowed for her day and night, and he had it proclaimed that whoever rescued the princess should have her for his wife.
The four brothers said to one another, “This will be an opportunity for us to show what we can do;” and they agreed to sally forth together to deliver the princess.
“I will soon discover where she is,” said the star-gazer.
He looked through his telescope, and said: “I see her already. She is a long way from here, sitting on a rock in the middle of the sea, and the dragon is there watching her.”
Then they went to the king, who, at their request, furnished them with a ship, in which they sailed away over the sea till they approached the rock. The princess was sitting there, and the dragon was asleep with his head on her lap.
“I dare not shoot,” said the hunter, “for fear I should kill the princess as well as the dragon.”
“Then I will try my luck,” said the thief, and he rowed a boat to the rock and took the princess away so lightly and stealthily that the monster continued to sleep and snore.
The thief got the princess safely on board the ship, and, full of joy, the brothers spread the sails to the wind, and steered for the open sea. But the dragon soon awoke, and when he realized that the princess was gone, he started in pursuit of the ship, flapping through the air at his best speed, snapping his tail savagely, and foaming at the mouth with rage. Just as he was hovering over the ship about to plunge down on it, the huntsman took aim with his unerring gun and shot the dragon through the heart. The monster was killed instantly, but his huge body fell on the ship and smashed it to pieces.
The brothers and the princess managed each to grasp a plank and thus kept themselves afloat. They were in great straits, but the tailor was equal to the emergency. With his wonderful needle he sewed together the planks on which he and his companions were sustaining themselves, and then they paddled about and collected all the other floating fragments of the ship. The tailor stitched them together so cleverly that in a short time the ship was seaworthy once more, and they sailed happily home.
When the king saw his dear daughter again, he was very glad, and said to the four brothers, “One of you shall marry her, but you must settle among yourselves which one that shall be.”
They discussed the matter with a good deal of warmth, for each pressed his own claims. The star-gazer said: “Had I not discovered the princess all your doings would have been in vain. Therefore, she is mine.”
The thief said: “What would have been the good of discovering her if I had not stolen her away from the dragon? So she is mine.”
The huntsman said: “But you all would have been destroyed by the monster had not my ball reached his heart. So she must be mine.”
“That is all very fine,” said the tailor, “but if it had not been for my sewing the wreck together, you would all have been miserably drowned. Therefore the princess is mine.”
When they had all voiced their claims to the princess, the king said: “Each of you is equally entitled to her, but since you cannot all have her, none of you shall have her. Instead, I will reward you each with half a province.”
The brothers were quite satisfied with this decision, and said, “It is better so than that we should quarrel.”
So each of them received half a province, and they lived happily in the home of their father the rest of their days.
