Once upon a time there was a king's son who had a dream. He saw the sun and the moon bowing down to him. The next morning he told his parents about his dream. His father became angry and said: “I am the sun and the moon is your mother. We will never bow down to you!” He called the guards and put his son in prison. But the queen hid her son in a box, gave him a bag of gold and a ring and had the box taken out to sea.

The box was carried by the waves to another kingdom. A fisherman found it there and discovered the boy inside. He used the gold to buy him clothes and food and sent him to school.

The years passed and the prince learned a lot, even the language of the animals.

An old king lived in this kingdom. One day, three ravens sat on the roof of the castle and cawed. They were chased away, but they came back every day.

Then the king proclaimed: “Whoever can tell me what the ravens are cawing about will receive a great reward”.

But no one knew what the ravens were cawing except the prince.

He went to the castle and said: “The three ravens are mother, father and son. Father and mother are arguing because the mother raven left the egg alone and the father raven had to raise the baby. Now they want to know who the raven child belongs to.”

The old king thought about it, then said: “Since you are so wise, you should do justice.”

The young man replied: “It is difficult to raise a child alone, so the child belongs to its father.”

As soon as the ravens heard this, they flew away. But the old king said: “I have grown old and have no son. You shall be my successor.”

So the foreign prince became king. He took the fisherman who had raised him to the castle. He then had soup cooked for the poor every day. Anyone who ate the soup could take as much as they wanted, they just had to have their name written down.

But his parents were in a bad way. They lost their kingdom, became poor and starved. Then they heard about the king who gave food to the poor and they traveled to the other kingdom. They ate the soup and their names were added to the list.

Every day the king read the names of the poor and discovered the names of his parents. He called the guards to him and said: “Bring them to me.”

Father and mother came to the throne and bowed down, but they did not recognize their son.

The king pointed to his hand and asked, “Do you recognize this ring?”

Then they recognized their son and began to weep. The father asked his son for forgiveness and they made peace with each other. They celebrated a great feast and lived happily together in the castle for a long time.

Fassung Djamila Jaenike, nach: I. Levin, Armenische Märchen, Düsseldorf/Köln 1982, unter dem Titel: Mond und Sonne. Übersetzung ins Englische von Lysander Jaenike © Mutabor