The Three Daughters

This is a story that has been attributed to the Mongolian influence in Russia. Mongols are also called Tatars and Ghenghis Khan was the most famous one that happened to invade Russia.

There once lived a woman. She worked day and night to feed and clothe her three daughters.

The daughters grew up. They were as swift as swallows and their faces as beautiful as the full moon.

One by one, they married, left home and moved away from their mother.

A few years passed, and their elderly mother got very ill. She decided to a send an orange squirrel with a message: “Tell them, my friend, that they need to hurry home to me.”

The squirrel hurries to the eldest daughter and tells her the sad news.

“Oh,” sighed the eldest, “I would be glad to go, but first I must clean up these dirty bowls.”

“Clean up the bowls?” said the squirrel angrily. “And so for the rest of your days you will be with your bowls!”

And the bowls suddenly jumped off the table and grabbed the eldest daughter -- from the top and the bottom. She fell to the floor and crawled out of the house as a big turtle.

The red squirrel knocked at the door of the second daughter and told her the news about her mother.

“Oh,” she answered. “I’d run right this second to my mother, but, I happen to very busy: I have to go to the tailor to get some yarn.”

“And so for the rest of your days, you will be knitting without end!”

The second daughter turned into a spider.

The youngest daughter was kneading dough when the squirrel arrived and told her the sad news about her mother. She did not say a word, she did not even clean her hands, and off she ran to her mother.

“Oh, my dear child,” said the squirrel, “you will always bring joy to people as you have brought to your mother. And people will love and cherish you, and your children, your grandchildren and great grandchildren.”

The truth was that the third daughter lived a long life, and all that met her loved her. When it was her time to die, she turned into a golden bee.

All summer the bee gathers nectar and makes honey, and her front legs are always in a sweet dough. But in the winter, when everything is perishing from the cold, the bee sleeps in her warm hive and upon awaking, all she eats is honey and sugar!