The Shepherd Boy (Grimm)
Division into chapters is editorial.
The challenge: a king tests the shepherd boys wisdom
A shepherd boy lived whose reputation for wisdom spread throughout the land because of his clever responses to difficult questions. When the King of the country heard these tales, he remained skeptical and decided to test the boy personally. The King summoned the shepherd boy to his court and made him an extraordinary offer.
If thou canst give me an answer to three questions which I will ask thee, I will look on thee as my own child, and thou shalt dwell with me in my royal palace.
The shepherd boy accepted the challenge and asked what the three questions would be. The King was prepared to test the boy's wisdom with seemingly impossible riddles that no ordinary person could answer.
The stakes were high - success would mean a life of luxury and royal adoption.
The clever answers: three impossible questions solved with wit
The King posed his first question: how many drops of water existed in the ocean. Rather than attempting an impossible calculation, the shepherd boy demonstrated his cleverness by proposing a condition. He told the King that if all the rivers on earth were dammed so that not a single drop flowed into the sea while he counted, then he could provide the exact number. This answer impressed the King, as it showed the boy understood the futility of counting something that constantly changed.
For the second question, the King asked how many stars shone in the sky. The shepherd boy requested a large sheet of white paper and began making countless tiny points with his pen. The marks were so fine they could barely be seen, and attempting to count them would strain anyone's eyesight to the point of blindness. The boy declared that there were exactly as many stars in the sky as points on his paper, challenging anyone to count them. Naturally, no one could accomplish this impossible task.
The King then presented his final and most challenging question: how many seconds existed in eternity. This seemed like the most impossible question of all, as eternity by definition has no end. However, the shepherd boy was ready with his most ingenious answer yet.
In Lower Pomerania is the Diamond Mountain... every hundred years a little bird comes and sharpens its beak on it, and when the whole mountain is worn away...
The shepherd boy explained that this massive Diamond Mountain measured two and a half miles in height, width, and depth. He described how a tiny bird visited the mountain only once every hundred years to sharpen its beak against the diamond surface. When this enormous mountain would finally be completely worn away by the bird's occasional visits, then the first second of eternity would be over. This poetic and imaginative answer captured the vastness of eternity in a way that was both impossible to verify and impossible to refute.
The King was thoroughly impressed by all three responses. Each answer demonstrated not just cleverness, but wisdom in understanding that some questions cannot be answered directly and must be approached through creative thinking and impossible conditions. The shepherd boy had proven that true wisdom lay not in having all the answers, but in understanding the nature of the questions themselves.
Thou hast answered the three questions like a wise man, and shalt henceforth dwell with me in my royal palace, and I will regard thee as my own child.
True to his word, the King honored his promise. The shepherd boy's intelligence and wit had earned him not only the King's respect but also a new life as a member of the royal family. His clever responses to impossible questions had transformed him from a simple shepherd into a prince, proving that wisdom and quick thinking could overcome any challenge, no matter how insurmountable it might seem. The tale demonstrated that sometimes the most profound answers come not from knowledge of facts, but from understanding the deeper meaning behind the questions being asked.