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The main character of this story is called “Ash.” He’s a character in several other folk tales too, where he is called “the Ash Lad” or “Boots.” He has two older brothers. He’s the youngest brother, but somehow, he always finds a way to keep up with his brothers. In this story, he and his brothers enter a competition to impress a Princess. Let’s start the story.

Ash and the Princess who said, “That’s a Lie!”

Once, there was a King who had a daughter. The Princess liked to make up crazy stories. When someone told a story, she always told her own story too. She wanted to tell the most unbelievable and outrageous stories. So, the King set up a competition. The King said anyone who could tell an unbelievable story that made the Princess say, "that's a lie!" would be the winner. The winner would have the chance to impress the Princess and become the future Prince. Many tried, but they failed. The Princess always told the craziest stories. Three brothers came to try their luck. The eldest brother failed, then the middle brother too. Finally, it was the youngest brother's turn. His name was Ash. He found the Princess at the King's farm.

The Princess said, "Our farm is so big! When two farmers stand at each end of it and blow their horns, they can't hear each other."

"Well, our farm is bigger!" said Ash. "When a cow gets pregnant at one end of the farm and walks to the other end, it's already time for her to give birth to her baby cow."

"Well, you don't have such a big ox as we do. When someone sits on each of the ox's two horns, they can't touch each other with a twelve-foot pole," said the Princess.

"Is that all? Well, we have an ox who is so big that when two men sit, one on each horn and each blows his mountain trumpet, they can't hear one another," said Ash.

"But you don't have as much milk as we do. We empty the milk into big tubs, and then we make fantastic cheeses," said the Princess.

"Oh! You do, do you?" said Ash. 'Well, we pour our milk into big tubs, and then we put the tubs into carts. We pour the milk into large tanks and make cheeses as big as a house. One day a horse fell into the cheese. We couldn't find her for seven years. When we found her, she couldn't walk. I put a small tree into her back as a backbone to help her walk again. But the small tree grew up into a very tall tree. I climbed the tree up to heaven. In heaven, I saw an angel sitting and weaving the foam of the sea into ropes. At that moment, the top of the tree broke off, and I couldn't get down again. So the angel let me slide down on one of the ropes. I fell into a fox's hole. My mother and your father were sitting there in the fox's hole fixing shoes. Just then, I saw my mother slap your father on the ear."

"That's a lie!" said the Princess, "My father has never done such a thing in his whole life."

So Ash won the competition. He impressed the Princess. And he became a Prince. The end.