When St. Atanas throws away altani and his winter clothes then is Atanas Day.
Once upon a time there was a poor old woman. She lived alone with her grandson – a boy. Once, just before Atanasov Day, the grandmother said:
‘Listen, son, you will wake me early tomorrow morning. We will ask St. Atanas to throw his altani instead of his clothes. And we will take the money.’
The child could not sleep the whole night. When the sun rose he said:
‘Come on, Granny!’
They got up. The old woman said to the boy:
‘Now show your head from the window and say ‘Alahiim verbana bershini para!’ (Give me, Lord, a jug of money!)
But as the boy was tired, instead of ‘para’ he said ‘kafa.’ ‘Kafa’ means ‘head.’ Instead of ‘Give me, Lord, a jug of money’ he said ‘Give me, Lord, a jug of head.’
And his head grew up. He could not take it from the window. Children passed by going to school and started to laugh at him: ‘What a head you have! We will call you the big head!’
The years passed. The boy grew up and went to the army. They did not want him there because he had a big head. At the end however they decided: ‘We will take him to look after the pigs.’
The barracks were near the Danube. The Big Head was watering, feeding and cleaning the pigs. One day, when he was taking water from the river, he saw a big chest carried by the water.
‘Oh, Lord, - the Big Head prayed, - let it go on its way if it is empty, but bring it to me if it is full!’
And a miracle happened – the chest, plis-plis-plis, came to the riverbank. He grasped it and was just about to kick it into the ground when he heard a voice from inside:
‘Please, save me! Just open the chest and I will serve you well! I will tell you my story! Do not kill me!’
The Big Head opened the chest and saw a queen lying inside. She had many tresses with precious stones. Even one of them was a whole treasure.
‘What are you doing in this chest, queen? – the Big Head asked. – Who chained you in?’
‘The king! – she answered. – He came back from a campaign and ordered me to bring him fresh water from the spring. I was slow because I was pregnant but he did not know this. So he got angry and ordered his people to throw me into the river.’
The Big Head took the queen into his house. There she gave birth to twins – a boy and a girl. They started to live together. The queen sold her jewelry and they built a big house, a palace. They lived there many years. The Big Head had no craft so he went to the forest to chop woods and sell them. The boy helped him. Once the boy stopped and looked at the meadow saying:
‘What a nice meadow for an army! I would put the cannons here, the weapons here, and the cavalry over there.’
In the evening the Big Head told everything to his wife and he said at the end:
‘All the time his words are words said by a king’s son!’
The boy however was near and heard everything. He started to wonder what the story was. He did not know until now that the Big Head was not his father. On the next day it asked his mother:
‘Mother, why did Daddy say that I was a king’s child? Who is my father? What is this king so that I am doing king’s things!’
The queen told her son the whole story. Then the boy decided to go and find the king. He took food and water and hit the road to the capital.
When the boy reached the capital he first wanted to know where the king and the ministers eat. He found out which the inn was, went there, and ordered food. He did not have any money but he had a weird gift: when he would throw wheat grain in the air it would turn to a golden coin.
The boy with a star on his forehead ate his food and called. He took out a grain and tossed it into the air. Suddenly the grain turned to a coin. Everybody exclaimed!
The waiter immediately went to the king and told him everything that happened:
‘Your Majesty, I have not seen a miracle like this! He tossed a grain in front of my eyes and it turned to gold. Who this man is, Where he is from – I do not know!!!’
The king ordered to bring him the boy’
‘Where are you from, lad? – the king asked. – And where is this land where wheat that turns to gold grows?’
‘Oh, Your Majesty, this land is where people are never slow bringing water from the spring’
‘Are there such land and such people who are never slow? Only the Lord is so perfect!’
‘If it is as you say, why did you chase away your wife, Your Majesty? Probably you wanted her to be God! You have thrown your wife into the river and she was pregnant – with me and my sister!’
The boy told him the whole story. The king burst into tears and asked forgiveness. Then he went to the queen and took her to the palace together with her children.
As for the Big Head, at least the house left for him.