Two-Eyes

A woman had three daughters, called One-Eye, Two-Eyes and Three-Eyes, because they had respectively one, two and three eyes. Two-Eyes was not respected by her mother and by her sisters, who always made fun of her or made her work the most. Every day, for instance,  Two-Eyes had to graze the goat, and she received very little food. One day she was very hungry and started crying, and a fairy suddenly appeared. The magic creature told the girl: “My darling, I am going to teach you a magic formula which will allow you to get a full meal. You will just have to say to your goat – Little goat, bleat. Little table, appear -”. So, the girl said the magic words, and immediately a table full of delicacies appeared in front of her! Two-Eyes ate the delicious food, and she was so full that at the dinner she didn’t eat anything from the meager portion the mother gave her. This situation kept happening for some time, so the mother and the sisters became quite suspicious. The mother decided to send another of her daughters to the meadow, to observe what the middle-daughter was doing, so one day both Two-Eyes and One-Eye went to graze the goat. When the lunchtime approached, Two-Eyes sang a sweet lullaby and One-Eye fell asleep. After that, Two-Eyes pronounced the magic formula – Little goat, bleat. Little table, appear – and had her nutritious meal come out. The following day Three-Eyes accompanied her sister to graze the goat, and again at lunchtime she sang to make her sister fall asleep. She did the magic once again, but did not notice that the third eye of her sister was open, so she saw the whole scene. Once back, Three-Eyes told about the episode to her mother, who decided to kill the goat during the night. Two-Eyes, the day after, was insanely sad when she saw what had happened, and cried a lot. She asked her mother: “Can I at least have the heart of the goat to bury?”. “Yes, you can have that”, the mother replied. So the girl buried the heart of the goat in front of the house. The following day she noticed that something incredible had taken place: a wonderful tree had grown, with golden fruits and silver leaves. The mother and the evil sisters tried to catch the beautiful fruits, but didn’t succeed, as the branches were moving away from them. Just Two-Eyes managed to pick them, but she had to give them to her family members, that started treating her even worse than usual. 

Two-Eyes’s life was quite tough, but one day a prince passed in front of their house and saw the amazing tree. “Is it possible to get a branch of this tree with some golden fruits?”, he asked. And of course One-Eye and Three-Eyes tried hard to get one, but, as usual, they did not manage to grab any, whereas Two-Eyes did it without difficulties, and gave it to the prince. “Thank you so much for your generosity and kindness. What can I do for you?”. The girl answered: “Oh, if I could only leave this place, it would be the best gift ever! Here, in fact, I am not loved, I am always hungry and my family do lots of sort of evil things to me”. “Poor, sweet girl! I am so sorry for your misfortune! I will bring you with me, to the royal castle, where you can finally have a good and wealthy life”. So the two left and reached the castle. After some time they fell in love and got married, and were living a happy life. A few years later two poor women came to the castle, asking for food and hospitality. Two-Eyes recognised her evil sisters, who repented for what they had done. The princess forgave them and decided to welcome them home.

Tags: three sisters; eyes; goat; magic tree; prince.