Three Rival Brothers
Three brothers took a walk. They stopped at a town and fell in love with the king’s daughter, and each wanted to marry her.
The king told them that he would give her to the one who brought him a servant. So they started out in search of a servant and traveled many days into strange lands.
Each one of the brothers had something with which he could do wonders. One of the brothers had a glass into which he could look and find out each day everything that had happened in the town he had passed. One of the others had a hammock into which one might sit, and be carried anywhere he wished to go. The third brother had some medicine with which he could raise the dead if they had not been dead more than three days.
After they had walked two weeks in search of a servant one morning the brother with the glass looked into it and found out that the king’s daughter was dead, and that she had died on the third day before. He told the other brothers the sad news.
The brother with the medicine said that he could restore her to life if he could reach the town on that very day, before the third day had ended, but that they were more than two weeks’ walk to the town.
The other brother said:
“That is all right. Come, get into my hammock.”
Three Rivals standing over the dead Daughter
They all sat down and in a few moments they were in the town.
They went to the king and asked what was the news.
“Nothing,” said the king, “except that my daughter you all love is dead, having died three days ago today.”
The brother with the medicine asked the king what he would give him, if he restored his daughter to life? The king promised him the daughter and all his wealth. The daughter was immediately raised from the dead with the medicine, and the brother who had the medicine claimed the daughter.
The brother who had the glass claimed her because, as he said, “But for my finding out that she was dead we would not have known that she was dead in time to restore her.”
“She belongs to me,” said the brother with the hammock, “for although you knew she was dead we were two weeks’ walk away, and but for my hammock we could never have reached here with your medicine before the third day closed.”
The Judge walked away.
Unable to agree, the brothers began to disturb the peace. The people came and tried to persuade them to settle the trouble quietly but they refused to listen to their advice. The whole matter was then taken to the judge. After patiently listening to what the father and three brothers had to say, the judge was unable to decide the case. He turned it over to the people and walked away saying, “This question is too difficult for me.” The people were never able to decide the case.
To which one of the brothers did the daughter belong?