When they sowed, God gave a blessing; so in a week's time
it became green like rue; in a month's time, in two months' time, there
was corn, ever so much--ever so much, and all manner of seed was found
there: there was rye, there was wheat and barley; yea, maybe, there was
also a plant or two of buckwheat and millet. Wherever you went
throughout the world there was no corn to be seen; all the plain was
overgrown with grasses, steppe-grasses, and thistles, but with _them_
was corn like a forest. How people wondered and were astounded! The fame
thereof went over the whole world, and the news reached the emperor
himself, that in such and such a place there were three own brothers,
and with them corn had sprung up for all the world, and so beautiful,
never was the like beheld! The emperor ordered the three brothers to
appear in the imperial presence.
The brothers heard of it, and smacked the tops of their heads with their
hands. "Now it will be amen with us!" They went again to their father.
"Daddy! they tell us to appear before the emperor. Advise us, daddy,
what to do!" "Go, my sons--what will be, will be; and tell the pure
truth before the emperor." The brothers started off and went to the
emperor. The emperor inquired menacingly: "Why, villains, did ye hoard
up corn, when there was such a famine that so many people died of
hunger? Tell the truth; if not I shall order you to be tortured and
racked even unto death.
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