“The Hazel-nut Child.” The Yellow Fairy Book, edited by Andrew Lang, London, New York, Bombay: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1906, pp. 222-224.

Tale Summary

There was once a couple who prayed to Heaven for a child, saying that they wanted one so bad they wouldn't even care if it were the size of a hazel-nut. Their prayer was answered, and given to them was a child of exactly that size. They took care of him tenderly, and realized that he was very clever. At fifteen years old, his mother asked him what he intended to be, and the Hazel-nut child replied that he would like to be a messenger. His mother laughed, but the child insisted, and asked his mother to give him a message to deliver. She asked him to go to his aunt in the neighboring village and bring her back a comb. The child set off and found a man on horseback setting out for that same village, and climbed up under the saddle and pinched the horse. The horse went into a hard gallop and reached the village, where the child stopped his pinching and climbed off the horse. He grabbed the comb from his aunt and returned home the same way, and surprised his mother. One day his father took the Hazel-nut child with him as he brought his horse to graze in the fields, and left him there to watch the animal as he went home to talk to his wife. Soon after, a robber tried to steal the horse thinking it was unattended, but the child stopped him when he climbed onto the animal’s back and bit it, sending it galloping home. The Hazel-nut child explained everything to his father, who had the man arrested. When the child reached twenty years of age, he bid his parents farewell and promised to come home to them as soon as he became rich. He flew to the south on the back of a stork, where he came to Africa, where the people were much astonished by him. The king there grew fond of the Hazel-nut child and gave him a diamond four times his size, which he carried back north to his parents on the stork as soon as the weather warmed. He lived with his parents in happiness and prosperity until they died.