The Magic Turnip

The Magic Turnip

Once there were two brothers. Both had served in the royal army and both had worn the same red coats, yet life had treated them very differently.

The older brother had saved money, bought a fine house, horses, and fields. His barns were full of grain.

The younger brother remained poor. He was not lazy; luck simply seemed in no hurry to visit him.

One day he folded away his soldier’s coat and said:

“If my hands can hold a sword, they can probably manage a shovel.”

He became a gardener.

At first it was difficult. The soil was hard, rain either refused to come or poured for days, and sparrows treated every new seed as a personal invitation to breakfast.

Still, the gardener kept working.

He dug, watered, weeded, and even talked to the plants.

“Come on, carrots, don’t be shy.”

“Cabbage, you are doing well today.”

“And you turnips, at least pretend to grow.”

The turnips did grow.

Especially one.

At first it was only a little larger than the others. Then twice as large. Soon its leaves covered half the bed.

“What a turnip,” said the gardener.

A week later he said:

“What an enormous turnip.”

Another week passed. A neighbor came, stared at it, and said:

“I don’t know what to call that anymore. ‘Turnip’ sounds too small.”

At last the gardener decided to pull it out.

He pulled alone. Nothing.

He called a neighbor. Nothing.

Two more people came, dug around it, pushed strong poles beneath it, and finally lifted it free.

The turnip was so enormous that it filled almost an entire cart.

Two oxen pulled it slowly along the road.

“What will you do with it?” people asked.

The gardener scratched his head.

Sell it? Who would buy a turnip that needed its own cart?

Cook it? One turnip could feed half the town and make the other half refuse turnips forever.

Then he decided:

“I’ll take it to the king. At least someone at the palace will be surprised.”

The guards at the gate could hardly believe their eyes.

“What are you bringing?”

“A turnip.”

“Where is it?”

“Right in front of you.”

“We thought that was a yellow barrel.”

The king was equally amazed. He walked around the turnip from one side, then the other.

“I have seen large horses, large pumpkins, and one unusually large cat,” he said. “But never a turnip like this. How did you grow it?”

“I don’t know, Your Majesty. I simply worked as I always do.”

The king asked about the gardener’s life and learned that he had once been a soldier and now lived very modestly.

“You have brought me the strangest gift I have received in years,” said the king. “And you brought it without a clever plan to gain something. So I want to give you something too.”

He gave the gardener a good piece of land, several cows, and money for new tools.

The gardener thanked him and returned home.

Now he could work without worrying every day about whether there would be enough bread.

News soon reached the older brother.

“What?” he cried. “The king gave him land, cattle, and money for a turnip?”

“Not an ordinary turnip,” a servant pointed out. “It was as large as...”

“Never mind!”

The older brother paced the room.

“If a turnip earns such a reward,” he thought, “imagine what the king will give for a truly expensive gift.”

He chose two magnificent horses, filled a chest with gold coins, added precious cloth, and carried everything to the palace.

“I have brought you a gift, Your Majesty.”

The king thanked him.

The older brother stood waiting.

The king stood too.

The brother coughed.

“Perhaps... Your Majesty would like to give me something in return?”

“Indeed,” said the king. “Generosity should answer generosity. And I happen to possess something more remarkable than anything I have seen lately.”

The brother straightened eagerly.

The palace gates opened.

A cart slowly rolled into the courtyard.

On it lay the gigantic turnip.

“Here!” announced the king.

The older brother opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again.

“Th-thank you, Your Majesty.”

All the way home, he sat beside the turnip becoming angrier.

“I gave gold, horses, and cloth, and received a vegetable!”

But what troubled him most was that his younger brother had planned nothing and still seemed to have gained more.

Envy is a strange thing. First it whispers, “That is unfair.” Then it says, “You deserve more.” If you listen too long, it may suggest something truly foolish.

The older brother listened.

He hired two rogues.

“Frighten my brother so badly that he forgets about his good fortune. Put him in a sack and let him think for a while.”

Then he invited the younger brother into the forest, pretending he had discovered a hidden treasure.

The gardener suspected nothing.

Two men jumped from the bushes, pulled a large sack over him, tied it, and hauled it up to a thick branch so the sack hung not far above the ground.

“Sit there and think!” they said.

Suddenly hoofbeats sounded on the road.

Afraid of being seen, the rogues ran away.

The gardener remained in the sack.

He twisted and tried to loosen the knot, but nothing worked.

Soon a young student rode closer, singing loudly and not especially well.

The gardener had an idea.

“Good day!” he called from the sack.

The student jerked the reins.

“Who said that?”

“I did. Up here.”

The student looked up.

“Why are you sitting in a sack hanging from a tree?”

The gardener made his voice very serious.

“This is no ordinary sack. This is the Sack of Wisdom.”

“The sack of what?”

“Wisdom. Sit inside for a while and your thoughts become sharper. Stay longer and you begin to understand things that once seemed impossible.”

The student’s eyes lit up.

“What have you understood?”

“For one thing, envy can make a person look sillier than a gigantic turnip on a small cart.”

“Incredible! May I try?”

“I don’t know...”

“Please!”

“Well, all right. But first you must lower me.”

The student untied the rope and freed the gardener.

“Now me!”

“If you insist.”

The student climbed into the sack. The gardener tied it but lifted it only enough for the student’s feet to almost touch the ground.

“Well?” he asked.

“Nothing yet.”

“Wisdom dislikes hurry.”

“How long should I stay?”

“Exactly long enough to remember that you should not believe every astonishing promise immediately.”

The student fell silent.

“I think the first bit of wisdom has arrived,” he said.

The gardener laughed, lowered the sack at once, and let him out.

“Forgive the trick. Strangers had just trapped me here. I needed some way to escape.”

The student frowned for a moment, then laughed too.

“Good. And I have learned a second lesson: if a sack speaks from a tree, ask a few extra questions.”

Together they went to the nearest village and told what had happened.

Soon everyone learned who had hired the rogues.

The younger brother went to the older one.

“You wanted my luck so badly that you nearly lost your brother.”

The older man lowered his eyes.

“I kept thinking only about what you received.”

“And do you remember how many years you had more than I did?” asked the gardener. “I never hated you for your house or horses. I simply wanted to grow my garden.”

This time the older brother truly listened.

He apologized and repaid the losses caused by his foolish plan.

At last the enormous turnip was cut apart. Some went to a great town meal, some became food for farm animals, and the best seeds were dried and saved.

The following spring, the older brother came to the garden.

“Will you give me some seeds?”

“Of course.”

“What if mine grows even larger?”

The younger brother smiled.

“Then I will be the first to come and see it.”

They planted turnips together.

None ever grew as large as a cart again, but the brothers were not disappointed.

For the greatest wonder of that turnip had never been its size. It taught one brother to work without despair and the other not to measure someone else’s happiness with his own envy.

That is quite a lot for an ordinary vegetable.

May this story leave a little light in your heart ✨