1. THE KING
The king put the louse into a flask and from time to time he allowed him to
feed of the princess’ royal blood leaving it on the girl’ s head for some
hours. The louse grow so much that the king had to put it in a barrel. The
princess kept on feeding it, and the louse kept on growing until the king
had to put it out of the barrel and put it in a bigger cask. Eventually, when
it did not fit in the cask, he had to kill it. The king had the louse’ s skin
tanned and ordered the royal tailor to make a leather bag.
When the bag was finished, the king made the same question to
everybody.
-Guess from which animal is the leather of my bag?
Some said that from beef, others from deer but nobody could hit on it. At
last, the monarch made proclaim in all his kingdom that the one who
guessed from which animal came the leather of his bag would marry the
princess. People came from many parts to see the bag, but nobody could
guess. One day, a shepherd arrived to the town bringing his flock to sell it
on the market. He decided to visit the town and started to walk. After
walking for a long time, he arrived to the king’ s palace. Tired, he sank
back on the garden’ s wall. He lit a cigarrette and as he was smoking he
heard someone talking in the garden. It was the king talking with the
queen saying her:
-I think that nobody is going to guess that my bag is made out of louse’ s
skin.As soon as he heard this the shepherd went away thinking “ now I
can marry the princess” .