Prince Charming (Fat Frumos) and the Sun. (Part1)

Posted on 26 mar 2008

Moldavian folktale

Once upon a time, maybe, not so long ago, I don’t know, just such misfortune happened - the Sun left the Earth. Pitch-dark night was always. There was no light and warmth. Forests and fields were dying; the animals and birds followed them.

People were saying that the Sun was stolen by dragons. But where they hided it, no one knew. Unhappy people suffered from the darkness – oh how suffering it was!

So, in those days, at the edge of untrodden forest, on the shore of a mighty river, husband and wife were living in a dilapidated hut. They were very poor: neither meat nor salt in the house, neither birds nor animals in the yard. They were getting by bread and chaff. The muzhik was diligent, well-built, a good family man. He walked all over the kingdom steadily and constantly, looking for work. Ready was for extracting water from a stone, only empty-handed would not come home.

But rumors went around the world that the Sun could be rescued from the bondage and retracted to the sky. People were talking of that and bearing up to each other: to save the Sun and take to the sky meant the Earth would be bright and generous again! Greenery would cover the meadows, the bread would mature on the bent - just have time to gather!

People would have free and untrammeled life then.

And then, thirty people gathered, maybe, forty and that muzhik who lived on the edge of the forest with them too, and decided they to rescue the Sun from captivity and return to the sky.

Bitterly was weeping and lamenting the muzhik’s wife, all the time asked him not to leave her quite alone. But could not she persuade him. Louder lamented she, the harder husband held his ground. Muzhik left home and disappeared. And the rest, all those who went with him, vanished without a trace.

A bit of time passed, as the man left, and the wife gave birth to a son, such a chubby sturdy child.

She named him Ion, affectionately called Ionike. And more she named him beautiful boy - Fat-Frumos. And he became Ionike-Fat Frumos( Ionike - Charming).

To be continued.