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Prince Ivan and Grey Wolf « Result #1 on Mar 10, 2009, 3:59am »
Prince Ivan and Grey Wolf Once upon a time there was a King named Berendei. He had three sons. The youngest was called Ivan.
And the King had a beautiful garden with an apple-tree in it that bore golden apples.
One day the King found that somebody was stealing his golden apples. The King was very unhappy about this. He sent watchmen into the garden, but they were unable to catch the thief.
The King was so grieved that he could not touch food or drink. His sons tried to cheer him. "Do not grieve, Father dear," they said, "we shall keep watch over the garden ourselves."
The eldest son said: "Today it is my turn to keep watch."
And he went into the garden. He walked about all evening but saw no one, so he flung himself down on the soft grass and went to sleep.
In the morning the King said to him: "Have you brought me good news? Have you discovered who the thief is?"
"No, Father. I did not close my eyes all night, but I saw no one."
The next night the middle son went out to keep watch, and he, too, went to sleep. On the next morning he said he had seen no thief.
welcome to the cheap wow power leveling, service site wow gold , buy cheap Cheap WoW Gold,world of wow power leveling warcraft WoW Gold buy WoW Gold It was now the youngest son's turn to go and keep watch. When Prince Ivan went to watch his father's garden he did not so much as sit down, let alone lie down. If he felt hat he was getting sleepy, he would wash his face in dew and become wide awake at once.
And in the dead of night what should he see but a light shining in the garden. It got brighter and brighter and lit up everything around. And there on the apple-tree sat the Fire-Bird pecking at the golden apples.
Prince Ivan crept up to the tree and caught the bird by the tail. But the Fire-Bird wriggled free and flew away, leaving a feather from its tail in the Prince's hand.
Next morning Prince Ivan went to his father.
"Well, son, have you caught the thief?" asked the King.
"Dear Father," said Prince Ivan, "I have not caught him, but I have discovered who he is. See, he has sent you this feather as a keepsake. The Fire-Bird is the thief, Father."
The King took the feather, and from that time he cheered up and began to eat and drink again. But one fine day he fell to thinking about the Fire-Bird.
He called his sons and said to them:
"My dear boys, I would have you saddle your trusty steeds and set out to see the wide world. Perhaps you will come upon the Fire-Bird."
The sons bowed to their father, saddled their trusty steeds and set out. The eldest son took one road, the middle son another, and Prince Ivan a third.
How long Prince Ivan travelled is hard to say, but one hot afternoon he felt so tired that he got off his horse and lay down to rest.
Nobody knows whether he slept for a long time or a short time, but when he woke up his horse was gone. So he went to look for it. He walked and walked, and at last he found the remains of his horse: nothing but bones, picked clean.
Prince Ivan was in great distress. How could he continue on his journey without a horse?
"Ah, well," he thought, "I must make the best of it."
And he went on foot. He walked and walked till he was dead tired, when he sat down on the soft grass, sad and dispirited. Suddenly, there's no telling how, up came running a Grey Wolf.
"Why are you sitting here so sad and forlorn, Prince Ivan?" asked Grey Wolf.
"How can I help being sad, Grey Wolf? I have lost my trusty steed."
"It was I who ate up your horse, Prince Ivan. But I am sorry for you. What are you doing so far from home and where are you going?"
"Father has sent me out into the wide world to seek the Fire-Bird."
"But you could not reach the Fire-Bird on that horse in three years. I alone know where it lives. So be it—since I have eaten up your horse, I shall be your true and faithful servant. Get on my back and hold fast."
Prince Ivan got on to his back and Grey Wolf was off like a flash. Green forests swept by, blue lakes skimmed past, and at last they came to a castle with a high wall round it.
"Listen carefully, Prince Ivan," said Grey Wolf, "and remember what I say. Climb over that wall. You have nothing to fear—we have come at a lucky hour; all the guards are sleeping. In a chamber within the tower you will see a window, in that window hangs a golden cage, and in that cage is the Fire-Bird. Take the bird and hide it in your bosom, but mind you do not touch the cage!"
One More Use for Artists « Result #2 on Feb 27, 2009, 3:01am »
A great raja's daughter was beautiful and talented, and she loved to hunt in the woods on horseback. One day, as she was galloping after a fine buck, she suddenly found herself in a dense forest, all alone. She climbed a tree to see if she could spot her followers anywhere in the distance. As she reached the top branch, she was shocked to see a great forest fire. She watched the fire lapping up trees and shrubs, closing in with tongues of flame on the nests of birds and the lairs of animals, destroying everything in its way. Herds of deer and other animals ran about in a frenzy of fear, and birds of various colors were suffocated by the thick smoke, screaming and screeching as they fell into the fire. In the midst of this horrible scene, the princess was deeply moved to see a pair of wild geese trying very hard to save their young ones, their little chicks who didn't even have wings yet. As they tried to carry them here and there, they flew distractedly while the fire came towards them closer and closer. They had very little hope of saving themselves or their young ones. As the fire was about to catch the nest, the old male bird made a last desperate attempt and saved himself by flying to a point of safety, leaving the family behind. The mother goose threw herself as a guard over her little ones, and with all of them screaming wildly, was burned in the flames that closed over them.
The princess watched all this, and as she rode away safely, was both moved and angered by what she had witnessed. "How selfish and unreliable these males are!" she said to herself "I'm sure they are the same all the world over, whether they are birds or beasts or men. I'll have nothing to do with them ever. I'll never trust them." And she made up her mind then and there never to marry, ever.
Her followers, who had been frantically looking for her, soon caught up with her, and they all went home.
From that day on, the princess wore a serious face, shunned all males, and told her parents that she would never marry anyone. The old parents were very upset over this, and begged of her to tell them what had made her take such a drastic decision. She was silent and gave them no explanations. Soon everybody came to know that the princess was not for marriage, and the number of suitors soon fell off.
One day a well-known artist happened to visit the raja's court and painted some exquisite pictures for the palace. But just as he was getting ready to leave, he caught a glimpse of the princess and wanted to put all that beauty into a painting. So he begged the princess to give him a few sittings, which she reluctantly did. He painted with great pleasure a faithful likeness of her face and figure. And when he finished the painting, instead of giving it to her, he quietly took it with him when he left the city.
He visited next another raja, who was a great lover of paintings, and sold the painting of the princess to him for a large sum of money. The picture was hung up in the raja's great hall where everyone who saw it admired it and talked about it. They were enchanted by the beauty of the princess and wondered who she could be.
The king's only son and heir had been away hunting all this time and returned home, saw the painting in the hall, and fell madly in love with the image on the canvas without even asking who the original was. When he did ask, nobody knew who or where she was. The lovesick prince lost all pleasure in his daily rounds, shunned company, fell into a gloomy silence, and moped away in his corner of the palace. The father was very unhappy to see his son depressed and soon learned the cause of it. He felt anxious for his son's health and sent messengers in search of the artist. But the artist had long since left the country and gone away to foreign lands, as artists tend to do.
The prince's health and temper grew steadily worse and he was angry with anyone who came near him. One day the old prime minister, a trusted friend of the royal family, happened to arouse him from his gloomy reverie, and the prince was so furious that he at once sentenced him to death. The young prince's word was law in that palace, and the old man had no way of escaping his fate. When the raja heard of it, he summoned the prince and persuaded him to put off the execution for a few days, so that the prime minister might arrange his affairs and transfer his powers to someone else. The old minister was allowed to go home to his family for the time.
Though he didn't wish to talk about it to anyone, his family knew all about the fate that awaited him. His youngest daughter, his favorite in the family, talked to him soothingly, comforted him, and wormed out of him the secret of the prince's rage and sorrow.
Now this young woman was very clever and resourceful. She soon found a way of getting her father out of his difficulty. She went to the young prince, and somehow succeeded in getting an audience. She begged him very hard to spare her father's life for a certain length of time, so that she herself could go abroad and find the woman in the wonderful painting that was the cause of all this trouble.
This pleased the prince very much. The young woman's scheme sounded quite plausible. He saw some hope of realizing what was so far only a wisp of a dream. So he relented and withdrew his terrible order, and the old minister returned to his duties in the palace. The raja was very pleased at this turn of events and wished the young daughter of his minister every success.
Now the minister's daughter was herself a good artist. She made a faithful copy of the great artist's painting. She then dressed herself as a man and set out on her travels disguised as a wandering artist. She hardly knew where to go or whom to ask, but she loved her father and was determined to save his life. So she traveled for months in different directions, showed the picture of the princess wherever she halted, and asked everyone she met, but no one could identify the person in the painting. After a year's weary wandering, she arrived at a distant and strange country, and there, to her great joy, everyone who saw the picture knew who the person in the picture was. They all exclaimed at what a true and speaking likeness the painting was of the daughter of their own raja. And they all spoke of her as "The Princess Who Was Determined Never To Marry."
"Never to marry?" asked the minister's daughter. "What's wrong with her? Did something terrible happen?"
"Nobody knows," they said, "not even her parents."
This news damped her enthusiasm somewhat. If the princess had turned against marriage, how was she, a mere stranger, to succeed in getting her married to the prince who was dying for her?
Still, she was a brave girl and was willing to try more than one way of reaching the princess. She rented a house near the palace and opened her studio there. Every day she set up her easel near a large window that looked out on the palace and worked away with her paints and brushes, till the courtiers and finally the king himself wanted to know more about her. One day the raja summoned her to the court to show him her paintings. When he saw them, he liked them a lot, bought some of them, and invited her to do some pictures for the special palace he was building for his only daughter. Meanwhile, the minister's daughter had the opportunity to see the princess several times, and she was now sure the princess was the true original of the painting that had so enthralled the prince and nearly driven him out of his senses.
When the walls in the new palace were ready, the artist began to paint all sorts of lovely designs and figures on them, decorating even the ceilings and arches. The raja and his court came often to see them and to admire her artistry. Each picture was a study in itself, and each had a story that the artist recounted in her own winning manner. All this drew the ladies of the court to these pictures. Some of these women were friends and attendants of the princess. The minister's daughter thought these women, if anyone, would surely know the reason why the princess shunned all males and despised marriage. So she set to work on them and won them over with her art and courtesy till one of them opened up to her. She was a confidante of the princess, and she told the artist the secret story of the princess's adventure in the forest and her disillusionment with all males in nature.
This was all the minister's daughter wanted to know. On one of the walls of the living room, she drew a picture that was just the reverse of what the princess had seen in the forest. It was a wonderful picture that showed the utter fickleness of females and the devotion of a male. She substituted a pair of antelopes for the geese, and in the place of the princess she painted a very handsome young prince, so young, so brave and handsome, that he would win the heart of any woman.
As soon as this picture was ready, the minister's daughter persuaded the friends of the princess to ask her to come and have a look at it. One day, to her great joy, the princess did honor her with a visit. She went from picture to picture and greatly admired the artist's skill. She at last came to the picture of the antelopes and the prince, and she was arrested by it. She stood there for a while lost in thought, and then turned to the artist and said, "What's the story in this picture?"
"O princess," replied the daughter of the prime minister, seizing her chance, "this picture is about something that really happened to the prince of our country. He was out hunting in the forest and he saw this scene in a forest fire, which convinced him of the fickleness of all females and the faithfulness of males. This may not interest you very much, but it concerns us greatly in our country. This incident has brought such a change in the prince's life. Since this happened, he has shunned all women as faithless and refuses to marry anyone. This decision on the part of his son and heir causes our raja great grief and has cast a gloom over the whole court. Nobody knows what to do about it."
"How very strange!" cried the princess, hardly letting the artist finish her story. "Can males then be faithful and females false? I, for one, always believed that males were false and faithless in all of nature. But now I see there are two sides even to that question. After all, I've observed only one instance and made up my mind too quickly. I'll have to rethink the whole question."
"Oh, I'm glad to hear you say so, my princess," said the artist, obviously delighted by this turn, "but how I wish our good prince too would see his mistake as you do yours. But you are not stubborn as he is."
"Someone should point it out to him, I think," said the princess, "and perhaps, like me, he might change his mind. As I have benefited from an incident in his life, he might profit from one in mine. Please feel free to tell him about my case and see whether it will change his mind."
"Surely I shall, with the greatest pleasure, as soon as I get home," replied the artist, her heart fluttering with joy at this unexpected success.
From that day on, through word of mouth, everyone in the kingdom came to know that the princess had conquered her aversion to marriage and was once again open to offers, and suitors began to crowd the capital. But the princess refused their attentions and seemed displeased with all of them---for a new reason. Her chief pleasure was in looking at the pictures the artist had painted on her new walls and talking to her endlessly about the prince, in whom she had become greatly interested.
The minister's daughter knew what to do. She fanned the flames by telling the princess all sorts of vivid stories about the prince's manliness and virtues. She did it so thoroughly that the princess one day could no longer contain herself and wanted very much to see him. This was the very thing the minister's daughter had hoped for. She readily promised the princess that she would return to her own country and do everything she could to bring the prince back. She would tell him the princess's story and make him eager to see her and talk to her.
Great was the joy of the old prime minister, her father, and the young prince when the minister's daughter returned home and told them everything she had accomplished. The old man hugged her and called her the savior of his life. The young prince loaded her with gifts. The prince didn't waste a day in preparing for his journey. He set out with a grand cavalcade and a magnificent train of followers for the court of the princess's father, and we needn't tell you that the princess accepted him right away as a worthy suitor. The wealth of two kingdoms was poured into the splendor of a gala wedding.
Colorful Shades of Gray « Result #3 on Feb 16, 2009, 11:33pm »
Moths are very ugly creatures. At least that is what I always thought until a reliable source told me otherwise. When I was about five or six years old, my brother Joseph and I stayed overnight at our Aunt Linda’s house,wow power leveling our favorite relative. She spoke to us like adults, and she always had the best stories.
Joseph was only four years old, and still afraid of the dark, so Aunt Linda left the door open and the hall light on when she tucked us in to bed. Joe couldn’t sleep, so he just lay there staring at the ceiling. Just as I dozed off to sleep, he woke me up and asked, “Jennie, what are those ugly things near the light?”(I had always liked that he asked me questions because wow gold I was older and supposed to know the answers. I didn’t always know the answers, of course, but I could always pretend I did.) He was pointing to the moths fluttering around the hall light. “They’re just moths, go to sleep,” I told him.
He wasn’t content with that answer,wow power leveling or the moths near his night light, so the next time my Aunt walked by the door he asked her to make the ugly moths go away. When she asked why, he said simply, “Because they’re ugly and scary, and I don’t like them! ”She just laughed, rubbed his head, and said, “Joe just because something is ugly outside doesn’t mean it’s not beautiful inside. Do you know why moths are brown?” Joe just shook his head.
“Moths are the most beautiful animals in the animal kingdom. At one time they were more colorful than the butterflies. They have always been helpful, kind, and generous creatures. One day the angels up in heaven were crying. They were sad because it was cloudy and they couldn’t look down upon the people on earth. Their tears fell down to the earth as rain. The sweet little moths hated to see everyone so sad. They decided to make a rainbow.wow power leveling The moths figured that if they asked their cousins, the butterflies, to help, they could all give up just a little bit of their colors and they could make a beautiful rainbow.
One of the littlest moths flew to ask the queen of the butterflies for help. The butterflies were too vain and selfish to give up any of their colors for neither the people nor the angels. So, the moths decided to try to make the rainbow themselves. They beat their wings very hard and the powder on them formed little clouds that the winds smoothed over like glass. Unfortunately, the rainbow wasn’t big enough so the moths kept giving a little more and a little more until the rainbow stretched all the way across the sky. They had given away all their color except brown, which didn’t fit into their beautiful rainbow.
Now the once colorful moths were plain and brown. The angels up in heaven saw the rainbow, and became joyous.wow gold They smiled and the warmth of their smiles shown down on the earth as sunshine. The
warm sunshine made the people on earth happy and they smiled, too. Now every time it rains the baby moths, who still have their colors, spread them across the sky to make more rainbows.”
My brother sank off to sleep with that story and hasn’t feared moths since. The story my aunt told us had been gathering dust in the back corners of my brain for years,wow gold but recently came back to me.
I have a friend named Abigail who always wears gray clothes. She is also one of the most kind and generous people I’ve ever met. When people ask her why she doesn’t wear more colors she just smiles, that smile, and says, “Gray is my color.” She knows herself and she doesn’t compromise that to appease other people. Some may see her as plain like a moth, but I know that underneath the gray, Abigail is every color of the rainbow.
Gifts of the Heart « Result #4 on Feb 10, 2009, 1:29am »
In this hustle-bustle world we live in it's so much easier to charge something on a credit card rather than give a gift of the heart. And gifts of the heart are especially needed during the holidays. A few years ago, I began to prepare my children for the fact that Christmas that year was going to be a small one. Their response was, "Yeah sure, Mom, we've heard that before!" I had lost my credibility because I had told them the same thing the previous year, while going through a divorce.wow power leveling But then I had gone out and charged every credit card to the max. I even found some creative financing techniques to pay for their stocking stuffers. This year was definitely going to be different, but they weren't buying it. A week before Christmas, I asked myself, What do I have that will make this Christmas special? In all the houses we had lived in before the divorce, I had always made time to be the interior decorator. I had learned how to wallpaper, to lay wooden and ceramic tile, to sew curtains out of sheets and even more. But in this rental house there was little time for decorating and a lot less money. Plus, I was angry about this ugly place, I with its read and orange carpets and turquoise and green walls. I refused to put money into it. Inside me, and inner voice of hurt pride shouted, We're not going to be here that long! Nobody else seemed to mind about the house except my daughter Lisa, who always tried to make her room her special place. It was time to express my talents.wow gold I called my ex-husband and asked that he buy a specific bedspread for Lisa. Then I bought the sheets to match. On Christmas Eve, I spent $15 on a gallon of paint. I also bought the prettiest stationery I'd ever seen. My goal was simple: I'd paint and we and stay busy until Christmas morning, so I wouldn't have time to feel sorry for myself on such a special family holiday. That night, I gave each of the children three pieces of stationery with envelopes. At the top of each page were the words, "What I love about my sister Mia," "What I love about my brother Kris," What I love about my sister Lisa" and "What I love about my brother Erik." The kids were 16, 14, wow power leveling 10 and 8, and it took some convincing on my part to assure them that they could find just one thing they liked about each other. As they wrote in privacy, I went to my bedroom and wrapped their few store-bought gifts. When I returned to the kitchen, the children had finished their letters to one another. Each name was written on the outside of the envelope. We exchanged hugs and goodnight kisses and they hurried off to bed. Lisa was given special permission to sleep in my bed, with the promise not to peek until Christmas morning. I got started in the wee hours of Christmas morn,wow gold I finished the curtains, painted the walls and stepped back to admire my masterpiece.
Wait-why not put rainbows and clouds on the walls to match the sheets? So out came my makeup brushes and sponges, and at 5 A.M. I was finished. Too exhausted to think about being a poor "broken home," as statistics said,wow gold I went to my room and found Lisa spread-eagled in my bed. I decided I couldn't sleep with arms and legs all over me, so I gently lifted her up and tiptoed her into her room. As I laid her head on the pillow, she said, "Mommy, is it morning yet?" "No sweetie, keep your eyes closed unit Santa comes." I awoke that morning with a bright whisper in my ear. "Wow, Mommy, it's beautiful!" Later, we all got up and sat around the tree and opened the few wrapped presents. Afterward the children were given their three envelopes. We read the words with teary eyes and red noses. Then we got to "the baby of the family's" notes. Erik, at 8, wasn't expecting to hear anything nice. His brother had written: "What I love about my brother Erik is that he's not afraid of anything." Mia had written,wow power leveling "What I love about my brother Erik is he can talk to anybody!" Lisa had written, "What I love about my brother Erik he can climb trees higher than anyone!" I felt a gentle tug at my sleeve, then a small hand cupped around my ear and Erik whispered, "Gee, Mom, I didn't even know they like me!" In the worst of times, creativity and resourcefulness had given us the best of times. I'm now back on my feet financially, and we've had many "big" Christmases with lots of presents under the tree…but when asked which Christmas is our favorite, we all remember that one.
What if the world was a barin waste? What if black sand and sooot was all you cood see for your entire life? What if, in order to get to where you are, someone had to blindly die a horrible death for you? ...what if you were trapped among 'The Portals of Forlorn Hope'?
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