Birsen YAVUZ/Toki Şehit Er Yılmaz Özdemir Primary School

 

Serbian tale "Shepherd", Jelena Babic, OŠ"Milić Rakić Mirko" Prokuplje, IO Donje Kordince, Serbia

 Shepherd

The Shepherd is a folk tale for children about a good boy who saved the fairy girls, and they in turn wanted to reward him with one condition, that he doesn't look at what's going on behind him.

Once upon a time, there lived a boy who often took his few sheep, goats and cows to pasture near the sea. One early morning, while the sun was just beginning to burn, he saw a couple of beautiful girls sleeping in a clearing. They were fairies that were very beautiful and resembled each other. They lay still and looked like they were sleeping. The boy couldn't even imagine that these girls were fairies.

He thought the girls were tired from walking in the sun, so they lay down to rest.

"The sun will burn them" - thought the shepherd. "It's a pity that such beautiful faces are burned." I have to protect them somehow."

He saw a linden tree nearby and climbed it. Tore off the branches with as many leaves as he could get his hands on and made a mound above the girls. They soon woke up and stood up. They were surprised and began to ask who protected them from the sun.

They knew it was a little boy who did it, but still they asked out loud just to see if the boy would answer or not?

The shepherd did not answer. He even tried to run away because he couldn't look at the fairies since their hair was shining so brightly it seemed like he was looking at dry gold. However, fairies suddenly formed around him and he was unable to escape. In thanks for protecting them from the sun, they asked him what he would like to be given, but he was not allowed to ask for anything.

They offered him a bag of gold coins that was so powerful that it never ran out, and the boy would never again have to lead cattle to graze. But the shepherd did not care. He did not know the value of money, nor what money was. To him, his goats and sheep were more important than anything else because he cared about them the most. They were worth more to him than any purse and gold coins.

The fairies quickly realized what was important to the boy. "When you drive your goats and sheep home in the evening, you will hear behind you, from the direction of the sea, the chattering and ringing of various bells." "Don't turn around until you enter the house," the fairies told him and disappeared. And only then did the shepherd realize that these were not ordinary girls with beautiful faces and hair, but real fairies.

The sun was slowly setting and the shepherd drove his goats and sheep home. As he approached the house, he heard behind him the loud ringing and clattering of various bells. The closer he got to his house, the louder the ringing and chattering became. The shepherd boy listened to those sounds and was curious.

He forgot that the fairies had told him not to turn around, so he turned to see who it was behind him that was driving so many cattle whose sounds he could hear. He was only halfway there and hadn't entered the house yet. When he turned around, he had something to see - it was a very large number of cows, goats and sheep coming out of the sea and joining his goats and sheep. But the moment he turned around, the animals stopped coming out of the sea. Only those who had already left before the shepherd turned around remained on the path.

But the shepherd did not care. This was enough for him, even too much that he shared everything he got in such a strange way from the good and grateful fairies with his poor neighbors.

DERYA AV HARTUÇ

LORDS OF FAIRYLAND 

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