Folk Tales 5.

The Foal-Egg of Ratot

A Story from Hungary Translated in English by Gyulai Alapfokú Közoktatási Intézmény, Gyula Hungary

Once upon a time the guard of Ratot who looked after the fields found a huge peachy (delicious) pumpkin. “Wow ! What on earth is it ?” he exclaimed. He picked it up, touched and smelled it but he could not figure out what it was.   He went back to the village. Ratot brought the pumpkin into the village hall, where the village council was just in discussion. When the guard put the pumpkin down on the desk, all of the old counsellors were in horror. “I have already lived a lot but I have never seen such a creature yet.” said a counsellor. “Well, I have to tell the truth, I am not a child of today, but what on earth this can be ?” said another counsellor. At this time, the judge of Ratot also spoke, “ Well brothers, from its shape, it can be nothing else but an egg.” “Really, an Egg!” “What else it could be if not an egg.” The guard confirmed it that the egg was quite warm when he took it into his sack. The judge who was the cleverest person in the village also wanted to know what kind of egg it was.  The old counsellors thought lizard dragon but the judge believed the guard who said that in those days a strange foal sauntered the field. The counsellors exclaimed at the same time, “It is true! The strange foal laid it, because only a creature from Hell can have laid us such a big egg.”   “Well, we got the solution luckily,” said the judge, only one question, “What shall we do?” “We should hatch the egg.” “Yes, okay, but what shall we do it with ? Our horses don’t lay eggs, so they don’t brood them,” said the judge. Everybody was thinking, but the judge of Ratot had a good idea. “Well, my brothers, although the horses of Ratot don’t have big enough minds, the council of Ratot has. I’m saying that we should brood the precious egg.” It was a strange idea but everybody nodded. Setting a good example, the judge sat on the egg and then the others sat onto it. It is sure that someone would be still sitting on the egg if it were not for the citizens of the neighbouring villages, who started to gossip that Ratot had a rotten foal egg. Answering this, the counsellors started to argue that they would not sit on the egg any more.   The judge was very sad, because he believed strongly that the small foal had already moved inside the egg. The counsellors claimed the egg was smelly. Finally, they agreed that they would take the rotten egg up to the hill and roll it down to the gossipy neighbour village. After that everybody from Ratot went up the hill to see the rotten egg fall down to the bad-tongued neighbouring village. When they stopped their noses, the judge began to roll the foal egg down. The egg was rolling and rolling, finally it rolled into a hawthorn bush at the bottom of the hill. Inside the bush it crashed into pieces loudly and a small rabbit jumped out of the bush. All of Ratot shouted, “There is a small foal! The small foal is running! People, fetch it!”The villagers ran after it. Only the judge stayed on the hill, and he thought sadly, “I said that the foal had already moved. Hey, why don’t we sit patiently more some days on that God- given foal egg !?”