Once there lived a man who had ten children. His wife had died and the land he worked was barren and small. And yet he sang with the children every day to drive away hunger. They sang cheerful songs to greet the day, wistful songs to quench their longing for their mother, and quiet songs to help them fall asleep at night. Next to the poor man lived a rich man. He heard the singing every day, but he also saw the need and so one day he went to the poor man and said: "You have ten children and hardly anything to bite. Give me one child and you will get a bag of gold from me." The poor man called his children to him and said, "The Lord is giving us a bag of gold for one of you. Who would like to follow the Lord to his house? You will get enough to eat there and have a soft bed."
"None of us wants to go," said the children and cried. That evening the rich man heard sad laments coming from the neighboring house and could not sleep.
The next day he took a bag of gold and said, "Here you have a bag of gold. For this you must stop singing, because your singing does not let me sleep!" That day no songs were heard, it was silent and sad in the house of the poor, but the children could not sleep. Then one of the children began to sing so wistfully that even the father's tears came. He packed the bag with gold, brought it to the rich neighbor and said:" With hunger in the belly and hard work we can live. But without songs our life cannot be!" With these words, he returned the bag of gold to the rich man. From that day on, the songs were heard again in the poor man's house and we still sing them today.

Fairy tale from Ukraine, © translated by S.Fuss/Lysander Jaenike by version ©Djamila Jaenike, based on: Das fliegende Schiff, Ukrainische Märchen 1981