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The Princess of China
Once upon a time there were a king
and a queen who had one son. One day the youth went hunting with
the son of the Grand Vizier. In the course of the hunt, they
killed a magpie and a drop of its blood fell onto the snow which
had fallen heavily that winter. At that moment, a dervish happened
by and, seeing the red blood in the snow, declared, "This
blood is as red as the cheeks of the king of China's daughter."
When the youth heard this, he was filled
with such longing that he fell ill. He had to see the king of
China's daughter and find out if she was really as beautiful
as the dervish had said. The queen noticed her son was ill and
that he was moaning  and sighing all the time. She therefore asked him,
"What is troubling you, my son? What has made you so sad?"
He replied, "I am so full of longing for something that
I have fallen ill. If you promise me that I can have the thing
I want, I will get better and not die." The mother asked
what it was that he wanted. The youth called the son of the Grand
Vizier and secretly asked him, "What do we need to travel
to China?" He replied that they would need three baskets
full of gold and three horsemen. The son then turned to his mother
and said, "Give me three baskets of gold and three horsemen
and I promise to return, no matter where I go." The mother
went to the king and said to him, "Our only son has fallen
ill. He wants to go on a journey because he is suffering from
a great longing for something. He will return in two or three
years, but he needs three baskets of gold and three horsemen."
The king had everything readied and the youth set off with the
son of the Grand Vizier.
When they reached China, the three horsemen
returned home. The two young men looked for an inn and asked
an innkeeper, "How much money do you earn in a day?"
"Two hundred pence," replied the innkeeper. "We'll
give you three hundred pence," they said, "if you promise
not to let anyone else into the inn." The innkeeper gave
them a room which was usually reserved for three. They bought
some women's clothes and a couple of days later the son of the
Grand Vizier went off to the barber for a shave. When the barber
had shaved him, the young man gave him one piece of silver. Two
or three days later he returned to the barber for another shave
and gave him five pieces of silver. The third time he gave him
ten pieces of silver and then asked, "Where is the Turkish
girls' school here? I have a sister whom I must take to school."
The barber dispatched a young lad to show him where the school
was, and the two of them returned to the inn where the king's
son was waiting. There, the son of the Grand Vizier dressed in
the women's clothes. Then he said to the lad, "Show me where
the school is and then go home. I will go in by myself."
When they arrived at the school, the
lad departed and the son of the Grand Vizier rang the bell at
the door of the school. A girl came out and he said to her, "Here
are ten pieces of gold. Take them to the teacher with this note
and give her my greetings." The girl went back inside, gave
the coins to the teacher and said, "There is a lady at the
door who gave me these coins and told me to give you her greetings."
"Did you see who she was?" asked the teacher, but the
girl replied that she hadn't.
The next day the son of the Grand Vizier
went back to the school at the same time and rang the bell again.
The teacher sent the same girl to answer the door and the young
man repeated what he had said the day before. The teacher was
surprised and did not understand why someone was sending her
gold coins, so she ordered the girl not to accept any more gold
coins from the woman if she came again, but to have her come
into the building.
The following day, when the young man
knocked again, the girl asked him to come inside. He sat down
on a bench beside the teacher and gave her ten gold coins. Then
all the pupils came in to recite their lessons and went out again,
one by one. The king's daughter, too, came in and, having recited
her lessons, whispered to the teacher that she wanted to invite
the lady to dinner. The teacher said to the young man, "The
king's daughter would like to invite you to dinner tonight."
The young man accepted the invitation, saying, "Let me go
home first to ask permission and tell them not to wait up for
me because I can spend the night at the home of the king's daughter."
Then he returned to the inn and said to the king's son, "Don't
be sad any longer. I'll arrange everything so that you can marry
the king's daughter. She has invited me to dinner tonight."
And so he had dinner with her and lay
down beside her to go to sleep. The maiden however noticed that
the woman was really a young man because in his sleep, he threw
his leg over her. She asked him straight out whether he was a
man and he told her the whole truth. "Yes, I am a man and
have I come here with the king's son who is so taken with you
that he wants to marry you. I dressed in these women's clothes
so as to be able to see you." She asked him if she might
see the king's son. Is your mother still alive?" inquired
the son of the Grand Vizier. "Not any more." "When
do you go to pray at her grave?" "Every Friday,"
she replied. Then he suggested that he would go back to the inn
and send the king's son to the graveyard on Friday so that she
could see him.
On Friday, the maiden went to the graveyard
and saw the king's son, who had fallen asleep. He did not wake
up as she approached, but she could see that he was very handsome.
She picked three flowers buds, laid them on his chest and departed.
When the young man woke up and saw the flower buds, he was angry
at himself for having missed the maiden. The son of the Grand
Vizier later returned to the maiden and asked her whether she
had seen the king's son. She replied, "He was sleeping when
I saw him, but I would like very much to see him again, for I
have fallen in love with him." "Can you go back to
the graveyard tomorrow?" "I can go any day I want.
No one stops me," replied the maiden. "I'll go too
and make sure he doesn't fall asleep," the youth promised.
When she returned to her mother's grave
the next day she found the young man there, threw her arms around
him and kissed him. "I would like to have you for my husband,"
she told him, "but I don't know how, because I am already
engaged. The attendants of the groom are coming this week to
fetch me." The king's son replied, "I don't know what
to do either. Let's ask the son of the Grand Vizier and do whatever
he says." When the son of the Grand Vizier arrived, he asked
the maiden, "Do you like him enough to have him for your
husband?" She told him that she did, but that she was engaged
and the attendants of the groom would soon be coming to fetch
her. The son of the Grand Vizier suggested a plan, "When
you depart with the attendants of the groom and pass the graveyard,
tell them that you want to get out for a moment to pay your respects
one last time at your mother's grave. When you arrive at the
grave, I'll put on your clothes and you stay here with the king's
son. I will return in your place and you leave the graveyard
as soon as you can get away." When the day came for the
groom's attendants to fetch her, she asked them to stop for a
moment at the graveyard. They agreed and she went in. The son
of the Grand Vizier dressed in the maiden's clothes and climbed
back into the wedding coach, and the maiden and the king's son
married in secret.
When the son of the Grand Vizier arrived,
he was led to the house of the groom with all the pomp and ceremony
of a royal wedding. It was the custom there for the sisters of
the groom to spend the first three nights with the bride, but
the three sisters could not agree which one of them was to go
first. The queen, the groom's mother, decided that the youngest
daughter, whom she loved the most, should spend the first night
with the bride. After the first night, the youngest daughter
fell in love with the bride and begged her mother to let her
spend the second night there too. The second night, she realized
that the bride was actually a young man and said to him, "Tell
me the truth, are you a man or a woman?" "I am a man,"
he replied, " and then told her the story of what had happened.
She saw that he was very handsome and said, "I'd like to
marry you but I don't know whether you want me." "Oh
yes, I do. Do you know what we can do to escape tonight? You
must say that you want to go out riding and ask for a stableboy
and two horses. When we get to the city gates, show the guards
something that belongs to your father and they will let us pass."
The maiden went back to her mother and
asked for a stableboy and two horses so that she could go riding.
Her mother arranged for everything and the maiden secretly took
two water glasses with her. When everyone was asleep in the middle
of the night, the maiden and the young man rose and crept out,
mounted the horses and sent the stableboy home, saying they would
be away for two or three days.
When the servants came the next morning
to wake the bride and the youngest daughter, the room was empty.
The stableboy reported that they had gone out riding and would
be back in two or three days. The servants waited for three days,
but the couple never returned, for they had caught up with the
king's son and had married too.
[Source: Manuel de la
langue chkipe ou albanaise par Auguste Dozon, consul de France.
Grammaire, vocabulaire, chrestomathie (Paris: Ernest Leroux,
1879), reprinted in Folklor shqiptar 1, Proza popullore
(Tirana 1963). Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie.]
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