Once upon a time there lived a king. He did not have any children. He got married. Passed a year, two, there … but he still did not have a child. The king and the vizier got frightened – what would they do! The kingdom needed an heir!
Once the vizier said:
‘It is better that you find a small child abandoned by its parents and we declare a prince was born. If the child is abandoned no body would look for it, so no body would understand he was not your blood son!’
The king agreed. On the other day the vizier went to find such a child and after a long searching he found only one child, Romani, abandoned by his poor parents who were vretenari-kopanari (spindle and wooden bowl makers).
The vizier took the child to the king. On the next day they declared that the queen has given birth to a son. The whole kingdom celebrated the heir.
Twenty years passed. The king died and the boy who was declared as the king ‘s son was crowned as an heir.
When the boy became a king he took the old vizier and his people and went around the kingdom to get to know it. They were traveling a long time and one day they reached a big forest. The young king stopped with his suite, looked around and exclaimed:
‘Eh, what nice willows – what washbasins, what wooden bowls, what spindles could come out of them!’
As the old vizier heard this he immediately remembered the boy’s origin and said to himself:
‘Blood is thicker than water!’