The Laughing Prince; A Book of Jugoslav Fairy Tales and Folk Tales. Fillmore Parker

      The Magic Pitcher

      “Yes, that is all.”

      Danilo gave her some of the red grape conserve and of course, instead of the horns already on her head falling off, more grew on.

      “You’re not telling me the truth,” Danilo said, “and I can’t cure you. There’s no use my treating you further.”

      He turned to go and Peerless Beauty, in great fright, begged him to stay.

      “I do remember another misdeed,” she confessed. “I took by trickery a magic pitcher from the same foolish young man.”

      She gave Danilo the pitcher and he hid it in his shirt.

      “Is that all?”

      “Yes, that is all.”

      Danilo gave her some more of the red grape conserve and, of course, more horns grew out on her head. Then he pretended to get angry.

      “How can you expect to be cured when you don’t tell me the truth? I told you I could not cure you unless you confessed all!”

      Peerless Beauty wanted much to keep the magic cap but when the strange physician thundered and scowled and threatened again to leave her, more horned than ever, she acknowledged that she had taken the cap, too, and handed it over.

      This time Danilo gave her some of the white grape conserve and as soon as she had eaten it all the horns fell off and her head shimmered and shone as of old with her beautiful hair.

      Then Danilo told her who he was and at once the maiden sought to ensnare him again with her wiles.

      “What a wonderful man you are, Danilo! I could love you now if you loved me, but I know of course that you will never love me again after the cruel way I have treated you!”

      “But I do love you!” Danilo cried. “I do love you!”

      “No, you don’t!” she said, and she pretended to weep. “If you did love me, you’d tell me where you found those red grapes and what this magic conserve is made of. But of course you don’t love me enough to tell me.”

      Because she looked more beautiful than ever with the tears on her lovely cheeks, Danilo was about to tell her what she wanted to know when he remembered the old woman’s warning. That was enough. He hardened his heart and declared:

      “No! I’ll never tell you! Do you hear me: I’ll never tell you!”

      She wept and implored him and used all her wiles, but Danilo remembering the past was firm. And presently he had the reward that a man always has when he’s firm, for as soon as it was evident that she could no longer befool him, the evil enchantment that bound her broke with a snap and Peerless Beauty became a human maiden as gentle and sweet and loving as she was beautiful.

      She knelt at Danilo’s feet and humbly begged his pardon and promised, if he would still marry her, to make him the most dutiful wife in the world.

      So Danilo married Peerless Beauty and with the servants of the magic pitcher transported her and her castle and her riches together with the old woman who had befriended them both to his own native village. There he still lives happy and prosperous.

      His uncle and all the old men in the village take credit to themselves for the success of his adventures.

      “It is due entirely to us,” they tell any one who will listen to them, “that Danilo went out in search of Peerless Beauty in the first place. When he came to us and asked our advice we said to him: ‘Go, by all means! You’re young and brave and of course you’ll win her!’ If we hadn’t urged him to go, he would probably have settled down here at home, married some quiet village girl, and never be heard of again!”

      That’s how the old men talk now, but we know what they really did say at the time!

      Yet after all that doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Danilo and Peerless Beauty love each other and are happy.