How the Knight Came Into His Wealth

Once upon a time, there was a kingdom. I think it was called the Czech Republic, and in it lived a knight. That knight, thanks to his hard work and partially thanks to his ancestors, had accumulated great wealth. But then came evil times, and after the revolution and the Battle of Kampeličky, the knight lost everything.

He was so miserable and sad about it that he didn't eat or drink for several days. One fine morning, he woke up and said to himself: "I shall go and acquire some fortune once again." So he called his servant—the last one he had left—and told him: "Saddle my horse and prepare my armor." The servant bowed and, with a cheeky smile on his face, replied: "Sir, if my memory serves me right, we ate the last horse sometime last summer, and we took the armor to the pawnshop three years ago. We haven't managed to buy it back yet." The knight frowned and pulled the last five coins from his pocket. He threw them to the servant, saying: "Get me a horse and stop complaining."

The servant bowed and disappeared with a smirk. When the knight got dressed and came to the courtyard, he found to his horror that the servant had only secured a child's wooden horse. The knight grew angry, wondering if the servant was truly messing with him. The servant bowed and replied: "My dear sir, this is the only horse in your price range, but it does have a bright side – it eats less than I've read."

The knight resigned, mounted his "steed," and set off on his way. However, because he was so pampered by his former prosperity, he ran about... forty meters and was exhausted. So he sat on a stump and started feeling sorry for himself, like a real man.

At that moment, the sky darkened and a mist fell over the land. From that mist, a figure emerged. The knight looked at her and said: "Oh, a magic grandmother! You will surely help me out of my troubles." The figure leaned back and quickly replied: "Not only are you poor, you're also blind, and what's worst of all—and what you seem to have the most of—you're pretty stupid." She fidgeted for a moment and added: "You're so stupid that because of your own foolishness, you couldn't see a tram through a dog."

"I'm not a grandmother at all; I'm thirty, and I'm not magical in the slightest—I'm just an ordinary accountant." The knight stared at her and, after a while, said: "Well, then I'm in real trouble, dear accountant. You probably won't help me much."

The accountant smirked and said: "On the contrary, I'll help you more than you think, you dummy." And she began explaining to the knight what he had to do. Following her words, the knight founded a company called Hermelín s.r.o. and began making money under the guidance of his accountant. Within three years, he had recovered so well that the whole world knew about him. And he named his famous residence "The Sparrow's Nest." He was so grateful to his good accountant—and perhaps he even fell in love with her after all that time—that he finally married her.

At this part, the fairy tale could end, dear children, and everyone would be satisfied and live there until the end of their days, but that's not how it goes. Our dear accountant—here I might even name her Jana Krásnopodpasová—first transferred all of our knight's assets to herself, stripping him quite bare, and then kicked him out onto the street. Well, she lives in luxury to this day. You're surely asking what happened to the knight? He works for the Prague City Hall as a street sweeper.

The bell has rung for the day, the knight was a fool anyway.