Prevod

Once upon a time there was a little shepherd boy who was famous far and wide for the wise answers he gave to every question. The king of the land heard of him too, but did not believe the stories and sent for the boy. He said to him, "If you can answer three questions I shall put to you, I will look upon you as my own child, and you shall live with me in my royal palace." The little boy asked, "What are the three questions?" The king said, "The first is this: how many drops of water are there in the ocean?" The little shepherd boy answered, "Your Majesty, have all the rivers on earth stopped up, so that not a single drop can flow from them into the sea before I have counted it, and then I will tell you how many drops there are in the ocean." The king said, "The second question is this: how many stars are there in the sky?" The little shepherd boy said, "Give me a large sheet of white paper." Then, with a pen, he made so many tiny dots on it that they could scarcely be seen and were almost impossible to count, and anyone who looked at them grew dizzy. Then he said, "There are as many stars in the sky as there are dots on this paper. You need only count them." But no one was able to do so. The king said, "The third question is this: how many seconds are there in eternity?" The little shepherd boy answered, "In Farther Pomerania stands the Diamond Mountain, which is an hour's journey high, an hour's journey wide, and an hour's journey deep. Every hundred years a little bird comes and sharpens its beak upon it, and when the whole mountain has been worn away, the first second of eternity will have passed."

The king said, "You have answered the three questions like a wise man, and from now on you shall live with me in my royal palace, and I will look upon you as my own child."