“How Six Men Traveled through the Wide World.” The Yellow Fairy Book, edited by Andrew Lang, London, New York, Bombay: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1906, pp. 95-99.

Tale Summary

There was once a man who was discharged from the King’s army after a war, but was given very little pay and resolved to find a way to get all the treasures of the kingdom. He met a strong man, a sharpshooter, an incredible runner, a man who could blow fierce winds from his nose, and a man who could cause a freeze from one ear. They walked until they reached a town in which the King had proclaimed that whoever beat his daughter in a race would be her husband, but would lose his head if he lost. The man entered this race, saying that his servant would run for him. The victor would be determined by who would be the first in bringing back a pitcher of water from a far off stream, and so the runner took off. He quickly reached the stream and fetched the water, but became tired halfway home and layed down for a nap with a horse skull for a pillow. The princess, who was very fast, filled her pitcher from the stream and found the runner on her way back, and poured out his water to give herself more time. The hunter saw everything and so shot the horse’s skull from under the runner, who jumped up and ran back to the stream for more water and returned to win the race, ten minutes before the princess. The King did not want his daughter married to a commoner, and neither did she, so he devised a plan. He sent the six men to a feast in a room with an iron floor, iron doors, and windows barred with iron, and as soon as the group was inside he locked the doors. He had the cook keep a great fire going beneath them to burn them alive, but the men soon realized what was happening and so the one with the power of frost sent a freeze from his ear and saved them. When the King went to see, he found that they were not only alive, but cold, even though the fire was burning still. He told the first man that he would give him gold if he agreed to give up his right to the princess, and he gladly agreed, and said he would take all the gold his servant could carry. The strong man came back fourteen days later after all the tailors in the kingdom had made him a huge sack, and took all the gold and treasures that the King had. Two regiments were sent after the six to arrest them, but the blower sent them flying away with a message to give to the King that if he did not leave them alone he would blow all of them away. The King let them be, and the six lived happily to the end of their days.