Chapter 122 121. The Bones of the Moors

A king's wife died, leaving him a son.The king married again, but soon he too died.His son lives with his stepmother.The stepmother didn't care about the child at all, because she was in love with a Moor and only thought of him.The king's son missed his father deeply, and hated the Moor.When the two of them went hunting together, the prince killed and buried the Moor in the woods. When the queen saw that the Moor had not returned, she was very worried, and went out with her dogs to look for him.Walking to the place where the Moor was buried, the dog smelled the smell of the corpse, it barked and pawed.It picks, picks, and finally picks up the body.The queen pulled out the body and returned to the palace with his skull, arm bones, and leg bones.Out of the skull she fashioned a cup, inlaid with gold and precious stones, a chair out of the leg bones, and a mirror frame out of the arm bones.

Then she went to her son to settle the score and said to him: "You killed the Moor, and I will put you to death. I can forgive you, but you have to solve this riddle within three months: 'I drink the Moor. , I sit on the mole, I look up to see the mole.'" The young man left the palace and traveled all over the world to find the answer to this riddle.He asked everyone he met, but no one could solve the riddle.On the last day of the three-month period, he came to a hut where a couple and a daughter lived.The young man asked them for something to eat, and the couple replied, "We can't uncook the pot ourselves. Look at how poor we are. We have to live in a straw hut."

"We still have a chicken," said the daughter, "kill it for this guest." The old couple had only one chicken, and they were reluctant to kill it, but the daughter said: "Kill this chicken, this guest must be the king's son!" The girl cooked the chicken, put it on the table, and asked the king's son to cut it up.The prince cut off the chicken legs for the girl's father, the breast for the girl's mother, the wings for the girl, and the chicken head for himself. At night, they made a floor with straw.The prince slept with the girl's father on one side, and the girl with her mother on the other.At night, the prince woke up and heard the girl say to her mother: "Do you see how the prince divided the chicken? He gave the chicken leg to daddy because daddy was going out to get us something to eat; He gave you the breast of the chicken because you were the mother who fed me and raised me up; he gave me the wings because I was as beautiful as an angel; .”

After hearing this explanation, the king's son thought: I am sure this girl can solve my stepmother's riddle.After dawn, he asked the girl the answer to the riddle. The girl replied: "It's easy: 'I drink a mole' means the Queen's cup; 'I sit a mole' means her chair; 'I look up a mole' means her mirror frame.'" The young man left the girl a bag of gold coins and promised to marry her later.He returned to his stepmother, but did not answer her answer, but said: 'I can't think of an answer, and I am going to die. " The stepmother immediately ordered the gallows to be erected.

The whole city gathered in the square, surrounded the prince with the noose around his neck, and shouted: "Forgive him! Forgive him!" "He may be spared," replied the Queen, "but he must solve the riddle." "Alas, this is the last chance," said the judge to the king's son, 'can you explain what 'I drink mole' means?" Only then did the young man answer: "Yes. This means that the queen made a wine cup out of a Moorish skull." "So, what does 'I ride a mole' mean?" "This means that the chair on which the queen sits is made of a Moorish leg bone."

"And 'I looked up to see Moore'?" "What that means is that the queen's mirror frame is made of Moorish arm bones." The judge also looked at the frame. Then said the king's son: "This set of riddles shows that whether the Moor is alive or dead, the queen's thoughts are on him, and she has forgotten my late father. The queen must be hanged!" In this way, the judge sentenced the queen to death. The king's son returned to the hut, and married the wise girl. (Benevento area)