The Tale of the Silver Saucer and the Ripe Apple

A peasant lived with his wife, and they had three daughters. Two loved finery and clever amusements, while the third was simple. Her sisters called her…

A peasant lived with his wife, and they had three daughters. Two loved finery and clever amusements, while the third was simple. Her sisters called her Simpleton, and her father and mother followed their example. They pushed her about, ordered her around and made her work. She never said a word against it and was ready for anything: weeding the grass, splitting kindling, milking the cows and feeding the ducks. Whatever anyone asked for, Simpleton brought it. “Simpleton, go! Simpleton, see to everything!” The peasant was taking hay to the fair and promised to buy his daughters presents. One daughter asked:

“Father, buy me some red kumach cotton for a sarafan,” while the other asked:

“Buy me some scarlet kitayka cloth.” Simpleton only looked on in silence.

Simpleton she might be, but she was his daughter. Her father felt sorry for her and asked her too:

“What shall I buy you, Simpleton?”

Simpleton smiled and said:

“Dear Father, buy me a little silver saucer and a ripe, juicy apple.”

“What do you want those for?” her sisters asked.

“I shall roll the apple on the saucer and say the words an old woman taught me in return for a bread roll I gave her.”

The peasant promised and drove away.

Whether the fair was near or far, whether he stayed a short time or a long one, he sold his hay and bought the presents: scarlet kitayka cloth for one daughter, red kumach for the other’s sarafan, and a little silver saucer and a ripe apple for Simpleton. He came home and showed them. The sisters were delighted and sewed themselves sarafans. They laughed at Simpleton and waited to see what she would do with the silver saucer and the ripe apple. Simpleton did not eat the apple. She sat in a corner and said:

“Roll, roll, little apple, on the silver saucer! Show me towns and fields, forests and seas, the mountains’ height and the heavens’ beauty!”

The apple rolled on the saucer, the ripe apple on the silver. Towns appeared on it one after another, ships upon the seas and regiments in the fields, the mountains’ height and the heavens’ beauty. Sun after sun rolled by, and the stars gathered in a round dance. It was so wondrously beautiful that no tale could tell it and no pen describe it. The sisters stared, consumed with envy, wondering how to coax the saucer away from Simpleton. But she would not exchange it for anything.

The wicked sisters went about calling and coaxing:

“Dearest sister! Let us go to the forest for berries and gather wild strawberries.”

Simpleton gave the saucer to her father, got up and went to the forest. She wandered with her sisters, picking berries, and saw a spade lying in the grass. Suddenly the wicked sisters seized the spade, killed Simpleton and buried her beneath a birch tree. They came home late and told their father:

“Simpleton ran away from us and vanished without a trace. We searched the forest and could not find her. The wolves must have eaten her!”

Her father grieved: simpleton or not, she was his daughter! He wept for her, put the saucer and the apple in a small chest and locked it. The sisters, too, were all in tears.

A young shepherd tended his flock, sounding his horn at dawn. He went into the wood to look for a sheep and saw a little mound to one side beneath a birch. Scarlet and sky-blue flowers grew all around it, with a reed rising above them. He cut the reed and made a pipe. Then, wonder of wonders, the pipe began singing and speaking by itself: “Play, play, little pipe! Comfort my dear father, my own dear mother and my darling sisters. Poor me, they killed me, they took me from this world, for the little silver saucer and the ripe apple.” People heard and came running. The whole village turned to follow the shepherd. They crowded around him, asking who had been killed; there was no end to their questions.

“Good people!” said the shepherd. “I know nothing. I was looking for a sheep in the wood and saw a mound, with flowers on it and a reed above them. I cut the reed and made myself a pipe, and the pipe plays and speaks all by itself.”

Simpleton’s father happened to be there. He heard the shepherd’s words and seized the pipe, which sang by itself: “Play, play, little pipe, for my own dear father; comfort him and Mother. Poor me, they killed me, they took me from this world, for the little silver saucer and the ripe apple.”

“Shepherd, lead us to the place where you cut the reed,” said her father.

He followed the shepherd into the wood to the mound, marvelling at the lovely scarlet and sky-blue flowers. They began digging into the mound and uncovered a dead body. The father flung up his hands and groaned: he recognised his poor daughter. There she lay, killed and buried by someone unknown. The people asked who had killed her, and the pipe played and spoke by itself: “My dear, dear father! My sisters lured me into the forest and killed poor me for the little silver saucer and the ripe apple. You will not wake me from this heavy sleep until you fetch water from the tsar’s well.” The two envious sisters trembled and turned pale, their souls burning as though in fire, and confessed their guilt. They were seized, bound and locked in a dark cellar until the tsar should give his august command. The father prepared to travel to the capital.

Whether his journey was short or long, he reached the city. He came to the palace just as the radiant tsar stepped out onto the golden porch. The old man bowed to the ground and begged for royal mercy. The tsar, his people’s hope, spoke:

“Take living water from the royal well, old man. When your daughter comes back to life, bring her before us with the saucer, the apple and her wicked sisters.”

The old man rejoiced, bowed to the ground and took home a small bottle of living water. He ran into the wood to the flower-covered mound and dug up the body. As soon as he sprinkled it with water, his daughter stood alive before him and flung herself, like a little dove, about his neck. People came running and wept their fill. The old man travelled to the capital and was led into the royal chambers. The radiant tsar came out and saw him with three daughters. Two had their hands bound; the third was like a spring blossom, her eyes full of heavenly light, dawn glowing in her face, tears falling from her eyes like pearls. The tsar gazed in wonder. He was angry with the wicked sisters, but asked the beautiful girl:

“Where are your little saucer and your ripe apple?”

She took the little chest from her father’s hands, brought out the apple and saucer, and asked:

“Tsar, my sovereign, what would you like to see: your fortified towns, your brave regiments, ships upon the sea or the wondrous stars in the sky?”

She rolled the ripe apple on the silver saucer. Towns appeared on it one after another. Regiments assembled in them with banners and arquebuses, drawing up in battle order: voivodes before the ranks, captains before the platoons, leaders of ten before their ten men. Guns boomed and shots rang out; the smoke gathered into a cloud and hid everything from sight! The apple rolled on the saucer, the ripe apple on the silver. The sea surged across it; ships sailed like swans, flags fluttered, and guns fired from the sterns. Shots rang out and guns boomed; the smoke gathered into a cloud and hid everything from sight! The apple rolled on the saucer, the ripe apple on the silver. All the heavens shone within it, sun after sun wheeled past, and the stars gathered in a round dance. The tsar marvelled at these wonders, but the beautiful girl was streaming with tears. She fell at his feet and begged for mercy.

“Tsar, my sovereign!” she said. “Take my little silver saucer and my ripe apple. Only forgive my sisters; do not put them to death on my account.”

The tsar was moved by her tears and pardoned them as she asked. She cried out for joy and rushed to embrace her sisters.

The tsar looked on in wonder, took the beautiful girl by the hands and said kindly:

“I shall honour your kindness and give your beauty its due. Will you be my wife and a good tsarina to the kingdom?”

“Tsar, my sovereign!” she answered. “Yours is a tsar’s will, but a daughter is under her father’s will and her own mother’s blessing. As my father commands and my mother blesses, so shall I answer.”

Her father bowed to the ground. They sent for her mother, and her mother gave her blessing.

“One more word to you,” the beautiful girl told the tsar. “Do not separate me from my family. Let my mother, my father and my sisters stay with me.”

Then her sisters bowed at her feet.

“We are not worthy!” they said.

“It is all forgotten, dear sisters!” she told them. “You are my own kin, not strangers from elsewhere. As the saying goes, may whoever remembers an old wrong lose an eye!”

She smiled as she spoke and helped her sisters up. They wept in repentance, their tears flowing like a river, and would not rise from the ground. Then the tsar commanded them to rise, looked on them gently and told them to remain in the palace. What a feast there was! The porch blazed with lights like the sun with its rays. The tsar and tsarina took their seats in a carriage. The earth shook and the people ran alongside, shouting, “Long life and health to you for ages to come!”