Friday, February 15, 2019 <p><img data-align="center"></p><p><span>There is a king whose childless state makes him angry (Kerasounta) or sorrowful (Oinoe, Stavrin, Kromni).&nbsp; A magical being helps him out: in Oinoe, a dervish, in Stavrin, God answers his prayers; in Kerasounta, a devil.&nbsp; The devil and the dervish each demand one of the king’s future twin sons.&nbsp; In Stavrin, the queen has three sons over the course of three years.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span>In Stavrin, the king ends up with three sons, three foals, three puppies, and three cypress trees.&nbsp; In Kerasunta, the king ends up with twin sons and twin colts.&nbsp; In Oinoe, the king ends up with twin sons (even though the dervish instructs the king to give peel from the fertility apple to his horse).&nbsp;</span></p><p><span>The boys end up on the road by different means.&nbsp; In Kerasunda, the king tries not to hand over the promised son when the devil returns for him; the children both cursed and falls ill and the king reluctantly hands one over.&nbsp; In Oinoe, the honorable king without demur hands over the younger of the two boys to the dervish.&nbsp; In Stavrin, the king is not faced with such a choice: the two oldest boys decide to seek their fortunes away from home, leaving the kingdom to their youngest brother.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></p><p><span>External souls: In Stavrin, a cypress that will wither if the boy falls into trouble (“The king had raised in front of his palace three cypresses and he promised one of them to each child of his.&nbsp; The cypresses were joined with the life of the children and whatever the children suffered the cypresses also suffered.”); in Oinoe, a sword that will drip blood hung on a wall; in Kerasounta, a club that will also drip blood hung up inside a hall.</span></p><p><span>In Kerasounta, the horse has the gift of speech and advises the boy; in Oinoe, a mysterious old woman advises him; in Stavrin the brothers don’t need an advisor but separate (and here the story is more like the one in Santa) when they come to a fork in the road.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span>In Kerasounta, the devil leads the boy into a house, and a beautiful girl, kidnapped by the devil, tells the boy how to defeat the devil in the form of a snake.&nbsp; Once the devil is dead, the girl makes up a bed for the two of them, the boy finds two keys in her hair, finds two dogs in one room, and two fountains in the other, and makes one dog gold and the other silver.&nbsp; He gets up in the morning, takes the horse and one of the dog, chases a wild goat into the forest.&nbsp; He loses several games of cards to a Moor, and so loses his dog, his horse, and his life.&nbsp; At which point his club back at home starts to drip blood.</span></p><p><span>In Oinoe, the old woman tells the boy that the dervish is a cannibal and is taking him to a house full of human remains.&nbsp; She tells him how to defeat the dervish with his own sword.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;He finds lots of good things to eat and drink in the house, but can’t escape from there.&nbsp; After some time, he finds a horse that can help him escape from the house; the horse can talk.&nbsp; After that, he doesn’t want to return home.&nbsp; On the road, he comes to a spring that turns him and the horse golden.&nbsp; He comes across two armies clashing and decides to help the one in danger of being defeated.&nbsp; (Beginning to sound much like Sir Goldenhair.)&nbsp; He helps them win the day.&nbsp; King weds him to his daughter.&nbsp; The princess warns him against hunting on a particular mountain, so he goes there the next day.&nbsp; He finds a house and a Moor appears to wrestle him for the right to eat a plate of pilaf.&nbsp; He first loses his horse, then his sword, then is himself enslaved.&nbsp; At which point his sword back at home begins to drip blood.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span>In Stavrin, the brother comes to a town and is chosen king and given the dead king’s daughter in marriage.&nbsp; His wife warns him against going near a palace that he can see from his window, so he goes there the next day.&nbsp;&nbsp; A Nereid masquerading as a monk appears and turns him, his horse, and his dog into a marble statue.&nbsp; Back home, his cypress withers up.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span>In Oinoe, the father objects to his remaining son’s going to rescue his brother.&nbsp; In Kerasounta, the father is not consulted nor is his reaction recorded, the youth simply leaves on the mission.&nbsp; In Stavrin, the king orders his youngest son to run to the aid of his distressed brother.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span>In Kerasunta, he rides along the ugly paths thinking sympathetically of his brother.&nbsp; He finds his brother’s house and is mistaken for his brother by everyone.&nbsp; In the evening the wife prepares a bed for the two of them, and he sets his sword between them.&nbsp; Then he takes his dog and horse and goes to find his brother.&nbsp; He finds the wild goat and chases it.&nbsp; He defeats the Moor three times, rescuing his brother and his two animals.&nbsp; Then the Moor turns into a girl, and the rescuing brother takes her for his wife.&nbsp; The first brother returns to his own wife.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span>In Stavrin, the youngest brother takes his horse and go and goes in search.&nbsp; At the crossroads he recognizes his brother’s horse’s hoofprints, and ends up at the palace and, pretending to be his brother, makes excuses for having been away so long.&nbsp; He threatens the queen with a sword if she comes near him during the seven nights they sleep in the same bed.&nbsp; She also warns him against the castle, so he goes off without telling anyone.&nbsp; He sees his brother, horse, and dog as statues.&nbsp; He defeats the Nereid by shooting at her with his revolver and she shows him how to return everyone to their prober selves.&nbsp; The rescued brother kills the Nereid, and all the other statues come to live.&nbsp; The middle cypress comes back to life.&nbsp; The middle brother suspects his younger brother of sleeping with the queen, until she asks him why he had kept the sword between them.&nbsp; The oldest brother then returns, having become king somewhere else.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span>In Oinoe, the youth’s father says that he is too old to have his other son go in search.&nbsp; Other brother tells him not to worry and leaves.&nbsp; The old woman mistakes him for the first brother, he explains that the situation to her.&nbsp; She tells what she knows, saying that if the first didn’t manage to kill the dervish, she doesn’t know what else to tell him.&nbsp; He finds the dervish lying dead in his doorway.&nbsp; He also makes himself and his horse golden at the spring.&nbsp; He is welcomed at the city as the prince.&nbsp; The princess says to him, “You went to that mountain, hmm?”&nbsp; He doesn’t reveal himself.&nbsp; He lies down with the princess with a sward between them.&nbsp; She is unhappy but says nothing.&nbsp; Then he goes to the mountain.&nbsp; The enslaved brother sees him coming from afar off.&nbsp; His hands and knees? Shake.&nbsp; He clues him in to the situation.&nbsp; Every bite he takes of the pilaf makes him stronger, so that he beats the Moor in wrestling, winning back his brother, etc.&nbsp; Just as he is about to destroy the Moor entirely, the Moor strikes himself in the face and turns into a beautiful girl.&nbsp; She says she was never a Moor but only a woman looking for a real man, and asks him to marry her.&nbsp; They return all together to the city, have feasts and weddings, then the elder returns to his father with his bride, so that each has his own kingdom.&nbsp;</span></p>