The Tsar’s riddle
A Tsar had taken prisoner a rebel leader. The rebel's daughter went tothe Tsar to beg him to spare her beloved father. She was a beautiful g girl, but the Tsar looked on her mixed feelings.
“I will free your father, and what is more I will marry you,” he said to her, “If you are able to solve this riddle. If fail, your father will die and you be forced to marry my stable boy.”
“Agreed,” said the girl, “what is the riddle?”
“You have to come back to me neither dressed nor naked,” said theTsar “neither on foot nor on horseback, neither with gifts nor without gifts.”
The girl went away and thought hard. The next day she came beforethe Tsar, wearing only a thick fishing net, so that she was neither dressednor naked; she was riding on the back of a large dog, so that she was neitheron foot nor on horseback; In her hands she had a quail, which shereleased in the Tsar's presence, so that she had come neither with a gift norwithout a gift.
The Tsar, who admired clever people as much as he admired braveones, kept his word. He freed the rebel leader and married his beautiful youngdaughter.
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