The Penniless Young Man Married the Princess (Part-2)

Since the king didn’t like the poor man as his son-in-law, he wanted to get rid of him — so he made a deal with the poor, young man to get him three golden hair strands from the monster’s head. He agreed to the deal and started his expedition.

The young man started his journey from the palace. After walking some distance, he reached the front gate of one town, where the gatekeeper asked him one favor in order to let him enter the town.

He said, “if I have to let you enter the town, then you have to do one favor for me. Can you do it?”

“Yes, I can,” the young man said.

The gatekeeper said, “our lake is dried up. Could you do something so that we can get our water back?”

“Oh yes, but let me finish my work first then I will come back and complete your work,” he said.

“Okay,” he said.

After taking a stroll for a while, he reached another entrance of the town, where the gatekeeper said, “our golden tree used to give us golden fruits for everyone in the town. Now, it has stopped. Could you do something about it?”

“Yeah, why not? But I will do it when I come back” the young man said.

The gatekeeper let him go. After a long walk, he saw the cave, but he needed to cross the river before he got to the cave — so he asked the boatman to help him cross the river.

He said, “I have been working as a boatman for a long time now because of my curse, and I don’t know how to get rid of this. Could you tell me how can I get rid of this?”

“Definitely. But I will tell you on my way back home from the cave.” the young man answered.

The boatman safely dropped the young man at the cave. The young man entered the cave and saw an exasperated old- woman sitting on a wooden chair, and told her about his difficult situation.

He asked the old woman, “I heard that the monster has golden hair on his head; I need three golden hair strands.”

He further added, “Also, I want those three answers for those three people who are waiting for me to solve their problems.”

“It’s very difficult, but I will try. But before that, I need to transform you into an ant so that my son wouldn’t know you are here” she said.

She transformed him into an ant and kept him in her hair. By nightfall, the monster came to the cave. Immediately, he smelled the human scent and searched for the human everywhere in the cave, but he couldn’t find him.

Upon seeing that, the old woman yelled at him for behaving oddly.

After he got tired of searching, he slept in his mom’s lap and fell asleep. Suddenly, his mom uprooted one hair strand from his head.

The monster woke up and yelled at his mom, “What are you doing?”

“I had a bad dream in my sleep because of that I uprooted one of your hair strands. In that dream, one town’s lake got dried up and water stopped flowing in that town,” she said.

“Yes, yes, that is because one frog is stopping the water flow in that lake. Once they kill that frog, the water would automatically flow in that lake,” he said in his somnolence.

After some time, she again plucked one more hair strand. Again, the monster yelled, “what happened to you?”

“Again a bad dream, son. This time, there was one town, where the tree had stopped producing golden fruits to people in that town,” she said.

“Yes, yes, one rat is eating the roots of that tree. They have to kill the rat to restore the tree,” he said while yawning.

Finally, she plucked the last one. This time, the monster was infuriated and asked what happened angrily. She consoled and comforted him for a while before she asked the final question.

“Son, I dreamt that one boatman had been sailing the boat for a long time because of his curse. He really wanted to get rid of his curse” she said.

“Yes, I know that. He simply has to give that boat to the other person to get rid of his curse,” he said in his sleep.

In the morning, after he left the cave — she again transformed the ant into a human and told him secrets that he wanted to know.

On his way back, the boatman asked the young man — then he said, “drop me on the other side of the river — I will tell you.”

The boatman dropped him on the other side of the river, and he said, “the next time — give this boat to the person who boards your boat then you will get rid of this curse.”

Then he reached the next town on his way. There he told the gatekeeper to kill the rat to grow the golden fruits again. For his help, the gatekeeper rewarded him with lots of valuable things.

On his next stop, he told the gatekeeper to kill the frog to get the water in the lake. For his help, the gatekeeper rewarded the young man with two bags of gold.

Finally, he entered the palace and told the story to the king about how he got the golden hair from the monster. Hearing this story, the king also wanted to do the same — so he started his journey to the cave.

He went to the river and asked the boatman to help him cross the river and the boatman happily offered his boat to the king and passed on the curse to the king.

That is how the king got the punishment for his wrongdoings.

The End!

If you want to read part-1 of this story then here it is:

If you are interested in reading fictional stories then take a look at the following stories.

Thank You!