I am in Macedonia again to research about the life of the Roma people here, and today I would like to tell you a story I heard from my friend Aida, who heard it from her grandfather when she was a little girl.
Once there were a man and a woman who already had many children. But one day they had another one. Shortly after that someone knocked at their door late at night. It was a travelling merchant who said he had been looking for an inn but could not find one. He asked for a place to sleep. So they let him sleep in their bedroom while they themselves slept on the floor in the other room. This travelling merchant was very rich and he was afraid for the money he was carrying with him. So he decided not to sleep. He would just rest and stay awake. But this was the third night after the baby had been born. And in the third night always three fairies come to write down the destiny of the newborn baby.
The first one said: “I think it would be best to write down that the child will die after one week.”
“But why?” said the second fairy.
“Look here, the family are so poor, they already have ten children, this one is the eleventh. I think it would be better for them if they did not have to feed another hungry mouth.”
“Oh, but it would be a pity to let such a pretty boy die. Let’s write something different”, the second fairy said.
“Look”, said the third fairy. “Here is a rich man, and just three days ago his wife gave birth to a pretty girl. Let’s write down that the poor boy will meet that girl and they will get married.”
And this they did. „The three fairies.“ weiterlesen
