The Foundling Prince

A tsar and a tsarina had a son. The tsar had to go away from home, and while he was gone, disaster struck: the prince vanished! They searched and searched for…

A tsar and a tsarina had a son. The tsar had to go away from home, and while he was gone, disaster struck: the prince vanished! They searched and searched for him, but he had disappeared without a trace. The tsar and tsarina wept for a long time. Fifteen whole years passed. Then word reached the tsar that a peasant in a certain village had found a child who amazed everyone with his good looks and cleverness. The tsar ordered the peasant to be brought to him at once. When the man arrived, they questioned him: where and when had he found the boy? The peasant said he had found him fifteen years earlier in a grain-drying barn, and described the fine clothes the child had been wearing. By every sign, it seemed he really was the tsar’s son!

The tsar said to the peasant:

“Tell your foundling to come and visit me neither naked nor dressed, neither on foot nor on horseback, neither by day nor by night, neither in the courtyard nor in the street.”

The peasant went home in tears and told the boy what had happened. What were they to do? The boy said:

“That’s not so difficult! This riddle can be solved.”

He took off all his clothes, wrapped himself in a net, and mounted a billy goat. He reached the tsar’s home at twilight and rode the goat into the gateway, with its front legs in the courtyard and its hind legs in the street. The tsar saw him and said:

“Here is my son!”