"Magic Grass"

Once upon a time there was a young hunter who went hunting in the forest. He was in high spirits all the way, very happy in his heart, blowing little tunes with the leaves while walking. Suddenly he met an ugly old woman, who said to him, "Hello, dear hunter! You look happy and content, but I am hungry and thirsty. Give me a little alms!"

The kind hunter took pity on the poor woman, and reached into his pocket to give her something. After giving it away, I want to move forward. But the old woman stopped him and said: "Listen, dear hunter, in order to repay your kindness, I want to give you a gift. Go forward, and you will come to a big tree in a while. There are nine birds squatting with a cloak in their paws. You're going to shoot your shotgun at them. The cloak will fall to the ground. One bird will be hit and it will fall to the ground. You hurry Pick up the cloak, it's a wish-fulfilling cloak, you just throw it on and you'll be where you want to be. And you'll have to take out the heart of the dead bird and swallow it whole, so you get up every morning and you'll find a gold coin under your pillow."

The hunter thanked the old wise woman and thought to himself: "What she promised is really wonderful, but will all this be true?" Hearing the chirping of birds among the branches, I hurriedly looked up and saw a group of birds grabbing a piece of cloth with their beaks and claws and pulling it around. They robbed each other and quarreled with each other. make it their own.

"Ha, how strange!" the hunter couldn't help shouting, "it's just like what the old woman said." He immediately took down the shotgun and fired a shot into the flock of birds, which made the birds' feathers fly around and scared them all away. One shot fell from the tree, and the cloak fell with it. According to the old woman's instructions, the hunter opened up the dead bird, took out the bird's heart and swallowed it, and then returned home with his cloak.

Waking up the next morning, he thought of the old woman's promise, and wanted to see if everything had been fulfilled. But no, as soon as he turned the pillow, there was a piece of gold shining in front of him, and he found another piece the next morning, and it was like this every day after getting up. He had amassed a great pile of gold, and at last thought, "What good am I to have all this gold, if I stay at home all the time? I want to go out and see the world."

So, he bid farewell to his parents, put on his rucksack and shotgun, and went out into the world.

One day, he came to a plain through a dense forest, and saw a majestic palace standing in front of him. In a window of the palace, there was an old woman standing beside a very beautiful girl, looking downstairs. But the old woman was a witch, and she told the girl: "A man came out of the forest over there, and there was a treasure in his body. We must deceive it, my beloved little daughter, you know, we are more worthy of that treasure." He has a bird's heart in his belly, so he can find a piece of gold under his pillow every morning." Then, she told the girl how to do it and how to play, and finally she stared at the girl viciously, and threatened, "If you don't Listen to me, you must be unlucky!"

At this moment, the hunter approached, saw the girl, and said to himself: "I have been wandering here and there for a long time, and now I want to rest and rest. Go to that gorgeous palace for a while, anyway, I have gold." Even so, the real reason was that he had fallen in love with that beauty.

He stepped into the palace gate and was greeted kindly and politely. Before long, he was so fascinated by the witch's daughter that he could not care for anything else, he always looked into her eyes, and was willing to do whatever she asked.

At this time, the old witch said: "Here, we must take the bird's heart. After he loses it, he won't feel anything." Then, they made a potion,

After boiling, pour into a cup. The old witch handed the cup to the girl and ordered her to take it to the hunter. She said to him, "Oh, dear, drink for me!" The hunter took the cup, and as soon as he swallowed the potion, he threw up the bird's heart from his stomach. The girl picked it up quietly and swallowed it, because the old witch wanted her to.

From then on, no more gold was found under the hunter's pillow, and the gold went to the girl's pillow, and the old woman would go to get it every morning. As for the young man, he was so madly in love with the girl that he didn't think about anything else, only longing to spend time with her.

At this time, the old witch said again: "We have the bird's heart, but we must also take the Ruyi cloak."

But the girl replied, "Let us leave the cloak to him, for he has lost his fortune."

The witch was furious when she heard this, and said: "Such a cloak is a rare treasure in the world, I must, absolutely must!"

She taught the girl tricks, saying that if she was disobedient, she would suffer. The girl had no choice but to do as the old woman told her, and then she went to the window and looked into the distance, pretending to be melancholy.

"Why are you standing there sadly?" asked the hunter.

"Ah, my dear," she answered, "there is a gem-mountain just across the way, where rubies of incomparable beauty are produced. I want them so badly, that it makes me very sad to think of them; but who can fetch them for me? Only Birds can fly up the mountain, but people can't go there!"

"If that's all you're worried about," said the hunter, "I'd like to relieve you of your distress at once."

After speaking, he pulled her under his cloak, thinking about going to the gem mountain opposite, and in the blink of an eye, the two of them were already sitting on the mountain. But it was a joy to look at the gems shining all around them, and they collected some of the most beautiful and precious. At this moment, the old witch tried her best, and the hunter suddenly felt heavy eyelids, so he said to the girl, "Let's sit down and have a rest. I'm so sleepy that I can hardly stand upright."

They sat down, and the hunter put his head on the girl's arms and fell asleep. As soon as he was asleep, she took the cloak off his shoulders and took it and put it on herself. Picking up the gems on the ground again, he made a vow and went home.

The hunter woke up from enough sleep and found that his beloved had lied to him and left him alone on the barren hill. "Oh," he sighed, "there are such great liars in the world!" He sat there worried and heartbroken, but he didn't know what to do.

This gem mountain belongs to a group of wild and savage giants who live on the mountain and run amok on the mountain. Not long after the hunter had sat like that, he saw three giants approaching. He quickly lay down on the ground, pretending to be sound asleep.

The giants came up and were the first to kick him, saying, "What kind of worm is this that dares to lie here and daydream?"

"Trample him to death!" said the second.

"Is it worth the effort?" the third said disdainfully, "Leave him alive, he won't stay here long, once he climbs up and reaches the top of the mountain, the white clouds will engulf him and take him away." of."

They talked and walked forward. The hunter remembered what they said, and when they were far away, he stood up and climbed towards the top of the mountain. He sat on the top of the mountain for a while, when a white cloud came slowly, rolled him up, took him flying in the sky for a while, and finally landed in a large vegetable garden. The vegetable garden was surrounded by high walls, and he landed slowly on the ground among the cabbages and other vegetables.

The hunter turned his head and looked around and said, "I just need something to eat. I'm really hungry. It will be very hard to go forward like this! But there are no apples, pears and other fruits here. There are vegetables and leaves everywhere. The leaves are still the leaves.” Finally, he thought: “As a last resort, I can eat some lettuce. Although the taste is not very good, it can lift my spirits.”

So he chose the thickest one in the litter and ate it, but just after swallowing a few mouthfuls, he felt that his spirit was not right, as if he had completely changed. Sure enough, he had four legs, a large head, and two long ears: to his horror he saw that he had become a donkey.

Still very hungry, and dictated by his present nature, the juicy lettuce had become very tasty, and he ate it greedily, and ate and ate until he finally came across another kind of lettuce, but he just ate it. At one point, it felt like a change had taken place: he had returned to his original human appearance.

At this time, the hunter lay on the ground and fell asleep, dispelling his fatigue. Waking up the next morning, he picked the bad lettuce and the good one, thinking, "They'll help me get back what's mine, and punish the unfaithful."

Then, hiding the lettuce in his body, he climbed out of the wall and set out to find his lover's palace. He ran here and there for many days, and he found it by luck. He immediately dyed his face black, so that his biological mother would never recognize him, so he went to the palace to stay overnight.

"I'm exhausted," he said, "and I can't go any further."

"Who are you, fellow countryman? What do you do for a living?" asked the witch.

He replied: "I am the king's envoy, and I was sent to find the most delicious lettuce that grows in the world. I was very lucky to find it, and I am hiding it on my body. It's just that the sun is too hot, and I worry about the fresh leaves. It will wither, I don’t know if I can deliver it.”

When the old woman heard that there was delicious lettuce, she became greedy and said, "Dear fellow, let me taste that wonderful lettuce?"

"Yes, yes," replied the hunter, "I have two, and I would like to give you one," he said, opening his pocket, and handing her the broken one.

The old woman was unprepared, she wanted to eat that novel dish so much that her saliva was about to flow out, so she hurriedly went to the kitchen to cook it herself. After it was finished, she couldn't wait to serve it on the table, so she reached out and grabbed a few leaves and stuffed them into her mouth, but as soon as she swallowed them, she lost her human form and turned into a donkey and ran into the yard.

At this moment the witch's maid came into the kitchen, saw that the lettuce was ready, and wanted to put it on the table, but she made the mistake of sneaking a taste of it, and ate a few leaves. As a result, the wonderful effect of the lettuce was immediately revealed. The maid also turned into a donkey and ran away with the old witch, but the big bowl containing the lettuce fell to the ground.

During this time, the "king's envoy" was sitting with the beautiful girl. She had waited for a long time for no one to deliver the food, and she was also hungry, so she asked, "Where is the lettuce?"

The hunter thought that the dishes must have worked, and said, "Let me go to the kitchen to have a look."

When he went downstairs, he saw two female donkeys circling in the yard, but the lettuce was scattered all over the ground.

"Okay," he said, "those two have been punished." As he spoke, he picked up the remaining vegetable leaves, put them in a bowl, and brought them to the girl.

"I'm bringing you delicious food, so you won't have to wait too long," he told her.

The girl ate some too, and immediately lost her human form like the other two, and ran into the yard in the form of a donkey.

The hunter washed his face so that the donkeys could recognize him, and then he went into the yard and said, "Now it's time for you to pay for your treachery!"

He tied up three female donkeys with a rope, and drove them to a mill. He knocked on the window, and the miller stuck his head out and asked what was the matter. The hunter replied, "I have three jackasses, and I don't want to keep them anymore. If you are willing to take them in, feed them, pen them up, and treat them as I say, I will give you as much as you want."

"Certainly, of course," answered the Miller, "but what shall I do with them?"

So the hunter told him that the old donkey was the former witch, and he had to beat it three times a day, but only gave him one meal of fodder; the younger female donkey was the former maid, and he had to beat it three times a day , feed it three meals; the youngest donkey is the beautiful girl in the past, he doesn't have to beat it, he only needs to feed it three times.

You know, the hunter still can't bear to let the girl be beaten. Then he returned to the palace, where he found everything he needed.

A few days later the miller came and he had to report that the old donkey who had been beaten all day but ate grass only once was dead.

"Though the other two were not dead, they got three meals of fodder," he said, "but they looked very sad, and they didn't look like they would last long."

The hunter relented, restrained his resentment, and told the miller to drive them back to him. When the two she-asses came back, he gave them good lettuce, and they were human again. The beautiful girl knelt down before the hunter, and said, "Oh dear, forgive me for what I have done to you! My mother forced me to do it, and I really don't want to, because I really like it. You. Your wishful cloak hangs in my closet; I would drink the emetic and spit out the bird's heart to give you back."

The hunter changed his mind when he heard it, and said, "Keep it, it's all the same anyway, because I want to marry you and let you be my faithful wife."

A wedding followed, and they lived happily ever after.