Short Prince

Once upon a time, two princes wanted to go out into the world to grow up. However, soon after they went out, they lived a corrupt life of squandering money and simply did not want to go home again. Their younger brother - a short, unassuming man - went out to find his two older brothers. When he went through all the trouble to find them, they laughed at him, saying that he was young and ignorant of the world and should find a way to get out and travel around. Thus, the three of them embarked on a journey together.

　　The first thing they encountered was an anthill. The two brothers wanted to dig it up to see how the poor ants scurried in panic and carried their eggs ...... but the short man said, "Let these poor little creatures live freely; I cannot tolerate your giving them trouble and disturbing their peaceful life. " Under his strong opposition, the two brothers had to give up the idea and walk past the side.

　　Soon, they came to a lake with many wild ducks swimming in the water. The two brothers wanted to catch two ducks to roast and eat, but the short man said, "Let these poor creatures live freely; you must not kill them." Over his objection, they had to go away again.

　　Then they came to a big tree where the bees had built a big hive inside a hole in the trunk, and so much honey was flowing down the trunk of the tree. The two brothers wanted to put a fire under the tree and burn all the bees to death to get the honey in the tree hole. But the dwarf stopped them and said, "Let these poor little bees live freely, I can't let you burn them."

　　At last, the three brothers came to a castle, and as they passed the stables they saw some stallions standing in them, but they were all made of marble, and there was not a soul to be seen in the castle. They passed through house after house, and finally found a door with three locks on it and a window through which they could see everything in the house. When they looked inside, they found an old man with gray hair sitting at a table in the house. They even called twice, but the old man did not hear, called a third time, he stood up to ask them to open the lock and let him out of the room.

　　After coming out, he did not say a word and did not allow them to move, silently leading them to a beautiful table, a table full of all kinds of good food. After eating and drinking, he arranged a bedroom for each of them to sleep in and then left without saying a word.

　　The next morning, he came to the boss's bedroom and took him out of the room to a marble table. There were three stone tablets next to the table, and after reading the inscriptions on the tablets, the Boss realized that the castle was controlled by magic, because what was inscribed on the tablets was how the castle could be freed from magical control. The first inscription is: under the moss of the forest, scattered with a thousand pearls of the princess, must find them all if before the sun goes down is still missing one not find all, that looking for the person will turn into marble.

　　Big brother set out, he searched all day, but at nightfall, he found less than a hundred pearls, so he turned into stone as the inscription said.

　　The next day, the second brother also ventured out. But his results are not much better than the big brother, he only found a hundred pearls, so the same turned into stone.

　　Finally, it was the turn of the short man, he searched in the moss. But to find the pearls is too difficult, the work is too hard and too tired, he sat sadly on the stone and cried. When he was in despair, the ant king, whom he had saved, came to his aid. It brought five thousand ants, and those ants soon found all the pearls and moved them together into a big pile.

　　The second inscription said: The key to the princess' bedroom must be fished out of the lake. The short man went to the lake where the two ducks he had saved were playing in the lake. When they saw him, they immediately swam over to him and asked him the purpose of his trip. After understanding his difficulty, the ducks immediately dived into the water and soon fished the key out from the bottom of the lake.

　　The third thing is the most difficult, is finding the youngest and most beautiful young princess of the three princesses. But all three of them were equally beautiful and looked the same. The only clue he learned was that the first princess had eaten a piece of sugar, the second princess had eaten some syrup, and the young princess had eaten a spoon full of honey, so he had to find out which one had eaten honey.

　　The queen bee, who had been saved by the short man and spared from the fire, came. It sniffed at the mouths of the three princesses, and finally stopped at the mouth of the little princess who had eaten the honey, and the short man knew that it must be the little princess. The magic was lifted, all the people turned into stone woke up and restored their original appearance, and the short prince and the beautiful young princess got married. After the death of the princess's father, the short prince became king, and his two brothers also married the other two princesses as wives.

　　Think about why the short prince was helped by the ants, the wild ducks, and the bees.