Long time ago there lived a King who had three sons; the eldest was
called Szabo, the second Warza, and the youngest Iwanich.

One beautiful spring morning the King was walking through his
gardens with these three sons, gazing with admiration at the various
fruit-trees, some of which were a mass of blossom, whilst others were
bowed to the ground laden with rich fruit. During their wanderings they
came unperceived on a piece of waste land where three splendid trees
grew. The King looked on them for a moment, and then, shaking his head
sadly, he passed on in silence.

The sons, who could not understand why he did this, asked him the reason
of his dejection, and the King told them as follows:

'These three trees, which I cannot see without sorrow, were planted by
me on this spot when I was a youth of twenty. A celebrated magician, who
had given the seed to my father, promised him that they would grow into
the three finest trees the world had ever seen. My father did not live
to see his words come true; but on his death-bed he bade me transplant
them here, and to look after them with the greatest care, which I
accordingly did. At last, after the lapse of five long years, I noticed
some blossoms on the branches, and a few days later the most exquisite
fruit my eyes had ever seen.

'I gave my head-gardener the strictest orders to watch the trees
carefully, for the magician had warned my father that if one unripe
fruit were plucked from the tree, all the rest would become rotten at
once. When it was quite ripe the fruit would become a golden yellow.

'Every day I gazed on the lovely fruit, which became gradually more
and more tempting-looking, and it was all I could do not to break the
magician's commands.

'One night I dreamt that the fruit was perfectly ripe; I ate some of it,
and it was more delicious than anything I had ever tasted in real life.
As soon as I awoke I sent for the gardener and asked him if the fruit on
the three trees had not ripened in the night to perfection.

'But instead of replying, the gardener threw himself at my feet and
swore that he was innocent. He said that he had watched by the trees all
night, but in spite of it, and as if by magic, the beautiful trees had
been robbed of all their fruit.

'Grieved as I was over the theft, I did not punish the gardener, of
whose fidelity I was well assured, but I determined to pluck off all the
fruit in the following year before it was ripe, as I had n