The Water of Life

Once upon a time, there were three brothers and they had a beautiful, wise sister named Anna. All the four of them worked very hard and built a beautiful palace. Everyone from the town admired the palace. But an old woman from the town said “We are so happy that you built a palace for your family. But the town needs a place to worship God. Can you build it for all of us?”. Anna and her three brothers accepted and built a place of worship for them.

Next an old man came to them and asked “We are happy with the worship place, can you get us the pitcher of water of life, a branch with eternal flowers with sweet fragrance and a talking bird”

The eldest brother accepted the old man’s request and set out for the quest. Anna and her other two brothers asked the old man eagerly “How will we know whether our brother is safe when going on this quest?”

The old man replied “Here, take this knife. If the knife turns red, it means your brother is in danger”. Anna got the knife from the old man and kept it safe.

On the way to find the pitcher, branch and the bird, the eldest brother met a huge, nasty looking giant. He had the ugliest feet with outgrown nails. The brother had never seen a giant in his life time. The Giant started to speak “Grrrr….what is your name? Why are you here?”.

The eldest brother said “My name is Steve and I came to find the pitcher, a branch with eternal flowers and a talking bird”. The Giant said “Okay…then you should walk past the talking rock that will tease and laugh at you. Hearing their comments you should not turn back and react or fight them. If you turn back and look, you will turn into a stone” The Giant warned.

But when Steve crossed the mountains, the talking stones started to tease and made fun of him. Steve could not control his anger hearing it; he turned to throw stones on the big talking rock. Steve turned into a stone.

Meanwhile in the town, Anna’s knife turned red. She was so worried that something happened to her eldest brother. She asked other two brothers to look for their eldest brother to save and bring him back home.

The two brothers also passed the mountains and faced the talking rocks and turned into stones.

Anna waited for days, but the brothers didn’t returned home. So, she packed some food and water and started the quest to find and save her brothers and also get the valuable things that was asked by the old man.

When Anna came to the Giant, she received the same instructions as her brothers did. With lot of confidence and control in her mind, she crossed the talking rocks without turning back towards them. 

She reached the top of the mountain, where she saw a pool of fresh water and nearby was a big tree with branches of fresh beautiful eternal flowers with sweet fragrance and on the branch was a talking little green bird. She took them all and started her way back to her home. The bird told “Dear Anna, sprinkle the water on the talking rocks and see the magic”. Anna did as the little bird said. To her shock, all the talking rocks became humans and her brothers were also among them. Then Anna realized that the water of life restored their lives.

Anna and her three brothers went back home. She planted that branch in her garden later turned out to be a beautiful tree with eternal flowers and its sweet smell filled the whole town. The talking bird perched on one of the branches and lived there happily.

Hearing about the story about Anna and her bravery, a handsome prince came forward and married her.

The End