This is post #18 of my penance after I have been blacklisted by Hivewatchers for plagiarizing.
No need to upvote this post, as the payout has been declined.
But comments are welcome. I will continue to upvote all meaningful comments.
THE TURKEY SITTER
There once was a king who was very fond of salt. This king was a widower and had three daughters to marry. He also had a valet, wise as there are few others.
One day when this valet was busy kneading in the bakery, the king came to him and said to him:
"Valet, you are a man of sense. I want to consult you on a very secret matter."
"Master, I don’t like secrets. If you must talk about your affair to anyone other than me, don't tell me a word about it. You would believe that I betrayed you, and you would kick me out of your home."
"Valet, I will only talk to you about it."
"Then I will listen."
"Valet, I have three daughters to marry. I'm old, and I don't want to be king anymore. When you have finished kneading, go and get the notary for me. I want to reduce myself to a pension and share my property between my three daughters."
“Master, if I were you I wouldn’t do that."
"Why, valet?"
"Master, he who has nothing left is quickly despised. In your place, I would keep my land, and I would endow my daughters reasonably on their wedding day."
"Valet, my daughters love me. I fear nothing."
"Master, put them to the test before you decide."
The king went up to his room and ordered his three daughters to be brought there.
"Do you love me? he said to the eldest."
"Father, I love you more than anything in the world."
"Good. And you, the middle one, do you love me?"
"Father, I love you more than anything in the world."
"Good. And you, my last, do you love me?"
"Father, I love you as much as you love salt."
"Wicked tongue! You insult your father. Go back to your room and wait until I have decided what to do with you."
The youngest daughter returned to her room. Then her two sisters said to their father:
“Our sister insulted you. She deserves to die."
"My daughters, she will die. But you two love me, and you will soon receive your reward. Wait for me here."
The king went back down to the bakehouse, where the valet was still kneading, and told him what had just happened.
“Now, valet, the test is over. Go and get the notary so that he can divide my land between my two eldest daughters, and the executioner so that he can put my youngest to death."
"Master, words are female; but acts are male. Your test is not good. If I were you, I would judge my daughters by what they do, not what they say."
"Shut up, valet. You don't know what you're saying. Shut up, or I'll beat you with a stick."
When the valet saw the king brandishing his staff, he pretended to change his mind.
“Well, master, I am wrong. You speak like a book. Do as you will. I'm going to go and get the notary, and I want to serve as executioner to your youngest daughter myself. I will take her into a wood, kill her, and bring you her tongue.
"You see clearly, valet, that you are of my opinion. Go and get the notary first."
So the valet went to fetch the notary. The king married his two eldest daughters immediately and gave half of his land to each of them.
“Notary,” he said, “I reserve, throughout my life, going to live with my eldest daughter for six months, and six months with the second. Don't forget to mark this on your paper."
But the notary was a great scoundrel, who was condemned, the same year, to the galleys for the rest of his life. He had secretly received money from the two eldest daughters, and he did not mark on his paper what the king had reserved for himself.
Source: La Gardeuse de dindons, from the French book Contes populaires de la Gascogne, tome 1, published in 1886.
Previous Tale: Bluebeard
Hello, my name is Vincent Celier.
I am writing translations of folk tales that I found in public domain French books, so that people who do not understand French may enjoy them too.
Here we have a familiar scheme: three daughters, the first two are bad and the youngest is the good one, but she will be punished while she did not do anything wrong.
We also have a valet who is a very good guy, as in the tale of La Fleur.
The valet says that he will kill the youngest daughter in the woods, but we can already guess that he will not do it, as in the story of Snow White, where the huntsman do not kill Snow White in the forest.
Yesterday afternoon, I tried Philippe's electric bike. I went for a short trip of 5.5 km.
This is an electric bike where the motor is not active when you don't pedal. So, even if you are helped by the electric motor, you need to exercise during the trip.
There is another kind of electric bike where the motor can be active without pedaling; in this case, in France, the bike needs to have a license plate and be insured.
Today, instead of using the e-bike, Philippe and I went for a walk. We left from the front of the Abbey.
Half of the walk was in the woods.
At some point, we arrived at one end of the road of the Abbey, "Road of Great Saint-Denis".
We got out of the woods 150m from the back of the Abbey.
In the picture below, you can see that our house is partly hidden by another house that belongs to another family. Both buildings were part of the Abbey a long time ago.
-- Vincent Celier