Chapter 104 103. Wood Maria

There had previously been a king and a queen, and the couple had a very beautiful daughter.When the girl named Maria was fifteen years old, her mother fell ill and was dying.The king stood by his wife's bed, weeping and telling her that he would never marry again, but the queen said to him, "My husband, you are still young and have a daughter to support. I leave this ring to you , whichever woman can just wear it on your finger, you must marry her." After the funeral, the king looked for a new wife.Many girls came and went back after trying on rings, some too loose, others too tight. "That means that fate is not so," said the king, "and we shall not think of it now." Putting the ring away.

One day, the daughter was packing things at home and found the ring in a drawer of a cabinet.She put the ring on her finger, and there was no going back. "This time, God knows what Dad will say about me!" she said to herself.She wrapped a black cloth around her fingers.Seeing her fingers wrapped, her father asked her, "What's the matter with you, daughter?" "It's nothing, Dad, I scratched a little bit." But a few days later, my father wanted to see how her finger was doing. He untied the cloth and saw the ring. "Oh, my daughter," said he, "you are going to be my wife!"

After hearing these terrible words, Maria ran out and hid herself, while she went to talk to the wet nurse. "If he mentions it to you again, you will say yes," said the nurse, "but say you want an engagement dress, grass-green, with every flower in the world There are no such clothes in the world, so you have every reason to reject her." When the king heard this request, he immediately called a faithful servant, gave him a bag of gold coins and a good horse, and asked him to travel around the world to find a grass-green dress with all the flowers on it.Finally, he came to a city full of Jews, and asked a merchant who sold cloth, "Do you have such and such cloth here?"

The Jew said, "Why don't I have one? I have something prettier than this!" In this way, the king prepared the engagement dress for his daughter.Maria ran to the nurse with tears in her eyes. "Don't be so sad, child," said the nurse, "and ask him for a dress for the Annunciation Ceremony: a sea-blue dress, with fishes of all kinds embroidered in gold thread." After several months, the servant found the same clothes for the king, also in the Jewish city.The nurse then proposed that Maria should ask the king for a wedding dress, even more beautiful than the first two: transparent, with the sun, the planets, and all the stars on it.The servant traveled around the world for the third time, and half a year later he also found the clothes.

"Now," said the king, "my daughter, we must not lose a moment, and we shall be married in eight days." A date for the wedding was fixed, but in the meantime the nurse made for the girl a wooden garment, and bound her tightly from head to toe, and this wooden garment could float on the sea. On the day of the wedding, Maria told her dad she was going to take a bath, and she put a pigeon with its legs tied up in the tub, and another pigeon outside the tub.The pigeon outside the bathtub tried to fly away, but it was tethered to the one in the water, and both pigeons pulled the rope towards themselves.The pigeon in the water flapped its wings and made the water splash, as if someone was taking a bath.At this time Maria put on the wooden clothes, in which she still hid the three grass-blue, sea-blue and transparent clothes, and fled.Her father kept hearing the sound of the water made by the two pigeons in that room, so he didn't notice it at all.

Maria fled to the sea and began to walk with the clothes floating on the sea.She walked on the waves and came to a place where a prince was fishing with some fishermen.Seeing the wooden girl walking on the sea, the prince said, "I have never seen such a fish. Let's catch it and see what it is." So he cast his net and dragged her to the shore. . "Who are you? Where do you come from?" asked the Prince and the fishermen. Maria replied: "I am Wood Maria, I was made with intellect, I was made with art, I travel all over the place. " "what will you do?"

"It will do everything, and it will do nothing." So the prince took her back to the palace and asked her to herd the geese.There was a goose-herding girl in the palace, whose whole body was made of wood. The news caused a great commotion, and people came from all directions to see her walking and floating freely on the grass and behind the geese in the pond. But on Sundays, when no one was looking at her, Wooden Maria took off her buoyant dress, untied her beautiful black braids over her bare shoulders, and climbed up a tree.On the tree she began to comb her hair, and all the geese gathered around the tree and sang:

"quack quack quack This beautiful girl here Looks like the moon, looks like the sun, She is the daughter of a king or emperor. " Every night, Wooden Maria returned to the palace with a basket of goose eggs.One evening she met the prince, who was going to a ball, and she joked to him: "Where are you going, Your Highness?" "I don't have to tell you." "Why don't you take me to the dance?" "If you talk nonsense again, I will kick you!" The prince kicked her ass.Maria went back to her goose house, changed into the grass-green dress with all the flowers in the world, and went to the dance hall.

At the ball, this strange lady was the prettiest of all the women, and she wore a dress which was unique and which no one had ever seen.The prince invited her to dance, and asked her where she came from and what her name was.Maria said: "I am the Countess Battistivari (Note: meaning "to kick with boots")." woman, and she said nothing but that Bhatistivari.The prince fell in love with her at first sight, and gave her a golden hairpin, which she pinned to her braid, and left the ball with a smile.The prince ordered his men to follow her quietly to see where she went.But Maria threw a handful of gold coins behind her, and the servants stopped to pick them up, and fought over each other.

The next night the prince was half sad and half hopeful to go to the ball.Wood Maria came with her basket of goose eggs. "Your Highness, are you going to dance tonight?" "Don't bother me, that's not what I think!" "Aren't you taking me there?" So the prince impatiently picked up a small coal shovel and hit her. Wooden Maria returned to the goose house, put on the sea blue dress embroidered with all kinds of sea fish, and went to the ball.The prince was overjoyed to be able to dance with her. "Tell me who you are this time." "I am the Marquis of Battipaletta." This time after Maria finished speaking, she fell silent.

The prince gave her a ring inlaid with precious stones, but she ran away as she did the night before, and she escaped the servants' tracking by throwing gold coins.The Prince loved the girl even more than ever. The next night, the Prince had no intention of entangled with Maria the Wood, and as soon as Maria came to ask him if he would take her to the dance, the Prince drew the rein on her back, for he was trolling the horse.At the ball he saw the lady, she was dressed in a more beautiful transparent color than the previous two nights.Clothes with the sun, planets and all the stars embroidered on them.She told him that she was the princess of Battibrier.The prince presented her with a badge bearing his likeness. The servants still failed to keep an eye on her that night. The prince loved the girl obsessively, and when he got sick, he didn't think about eating and drinking. The doctors didn't know what the cause was.With her, he said to his mother, who was always by his side and urged him to eat something: "Okay, I want to eat a pizza, but Mom, I want you to make it yourself." The Queen came to the kitchen, and Maria the Wood was there. "Let me do it, Your Majesty, I will help you." She said and started to bake the pizza. The prince started to eat the pizza and thought it was delicious.Just as he was about to express his compliments to his mother, he suddenly bit into something hard, which was a hairpin, which was exactly the one he gave to that strange beauty. "Mom, who made this pizza?" "It's me, what's the matter?" "No, tell me who did it." The queen had to tell him that Maria made it for her.The prince immediately said, let her make another one. Wood Maria's second pizza also arrives, in which the Prince finds his gem-encrusted ring. "Wooden Maria must know the whereabouts of that strange beauty," thought the young man, and ordered her to make a third pizza.When he found the badge with his own portrait in the cake, he got up from the bed, as if healed awake, and seemed to be completely back to normal.He ran to the goose coop and saw all the geese gathered around the tree, singing: "quack quack quack This beautiful girl here Looks like the moon, looks like the sun, She is the daughter of a king or emperor. " The prince looked up the branch, and saw the strange beauty, who had taken off her wooden dress, and was braiding her hair.Maria told the prince about her experience, and they soon became a happy couple. (Rome area)