Jewish Fairy Tales

Princess Solima was sick, not exactly ill, but so much out of sorts that her father, King Zuliman, was both annoyed and perturbed. The princess was as beautiful as a princess of those days should be; her long tresses were like threads of gold, her blue eyes rivaled the color of the sky on the balmiest summer day; and her smile was as radiant as the sunshine itself. She was learned and clever, too, and her goodness of heart gained for her as great a renown as her peerless beauty. Despite all this, Princess Solima was not happy. Indeed, she was wretched to despondency, and her melancholy weighed heavily upon her father. "What ails you, my precious daughter?" he asked her a hundred times, but she made no answer. She just sat and silently moped. She did not waste away, which puzzled the physicians; she did not grow pale, which surprised her attendants; and she did not weep, which astonished herself. But she felt as if her heart had grown heavy, as if there was no use in anything....

There once was a great king who ruled over a vast kingdom. This king possessed unlimited wealth and power, and had everything a man can have, except that he had no children, and thus had no one to inherit his throne. Now the king longed to have an heir, for the thought that his kingdom would one day fall into the hands of strangers haunted him. So it was that he spent much of his time consulting with doctors and wise men, as well as with every kind of sorcerer and soothsayer. But none of these was able to help him, and the king and queen despaired of ever having a child of their own. Then one day, when the king was very desperate, he turned to his ministers and asked them if they could think of anything else that he might do. An evil minister among them spoke up and said: If I may be permitted to speak, my king, I have a proposal which might possibly provide the solution to your dilemma.  The king replied: Yes, yes, speak up.  And the evil minister said: It is rumored, my lord...

The king of Bozrah had only one son, who was very precious to him. For this reason he did not permit him to travel outside the city, for fear that something might happen to him. But the prince had a strong desire to go hunting, so he pleaded with the king's minister to take him. The minister sought permission from the king, who agreed that the prince could go hunting with him, but he warned the minister to take care that no accident befell him. So it was that the prince accompanied the minister to the forest, and they spied a stag and pursued it. Then the minister said to the other hunters: Let the prince go after the stag by himself, for that is how he will best learn to hunt. So the prince pursued the stag on his horse, and rode deep into the forest before he realized that he had lost his way and did not know where he was, nor how to return to the others. He rode on and on, trying to find his way out, but he only became more confused. Meanwhile the minister and the others began t...