Episode Details

A Hungarian wonder tale from Elek Benedek's great collection of Hungarian folk tales and legends. A golden-haired prince will not marry and will not rest: his little brother was stolen from him in childhood, and he has vowed to walk the world until he finds him. Seven times he has already gone around the world. On the eighth journey he cuts his way into the giant egg on the world's giant tree and takes the letter that promises that death shall not reach him; he is pinned by the Magnet Mountain and escapes sewn in a horsehide on a vulture's back; he crosses the Hot Sea with a lion who will not be left behind, and comes to the island of the righteous, where the king gives him three rosebuds — yellow, white and red — that open into garments of gold, silver and crimson. And in the court of the world-beautiful princess he meets a champion who is his own exact image, with the other half of his ring on a black cord at his breast.

From Benedek Elek, Magyar mese- és mondavilág (Athenaeum, 1894–96), public domain; told in a fresh in-house rendering.

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