The Little Sugar Beet Vendor & Talkhun

He heard the sound of weeping. One by one he peered into
the castles. He saw that in each castle, there was a girl as
pretty as moonlight and a boy as radiant as the sun sitting
and talking and laughing. But in the seventh castle, a boy, radiant
as the sun was sitting alone with a chalk, drawing the
picture of a tulip and weeping from the bottom of his heart.
His tears could melt a rock's cold heart. Quch-Ali entered
and said, "Young man, don't weep. You break my heart with
all your tears."
The young man lifted his head and asked, "Who are you?
Where did you come from?"
Quch-Ali said, "I am the mountain-shepherd. The sound of
your weeping brought me here."
The young man said, "This morning I saw you on the mountaintop.
Such a good thing that you came. Come sit with me.
I am dying for a companion."
Quch-Ali sat down and asked, "Why were you crying like
that?"
The young man said, "It's a long story. If you feel like hearing
it, I will tell it."
Then he began telling his story ...
We are seven brothers. It has only been two days since we
have arrived in these forests. In our own city, we were blacksmiths.
We had an old father who was the best sword-smith
in the city. During the day, we pounded iron and at night, we
secretly crafted swords. The King had forbidden the manufacture
of arms. But because people needed swords, we were
forced to work at night. In the shop we had an anvil twenty
times the size of an ordinary anvil. All eight of us would
gather around it and pound away. One day, our father said to
us, "My Sons, I am dying. But you will live many long years
and you each need a companion and a wife. It is time that
you married. You need a wife that would roll up her sleeves
and hammer iron and make swords like you. Your cousins
would make worthy wives. But to prove your worth, your late
uncle and I have arranged a test for you. We have put the instructions
on how to find your cousins in the heart of this anvil.
You must make a sword so sharp that could split the anvil
in half so that you can find the directions to find your cousins."
Our father died a few days later. We seven brothers got to
work. We spent most of our time working underground with
steel and iron and mallets and the like. But whatever sword
we crafted would not even make a dent on the anvil. Instead
it would break into halves itself. Finally, on a dark and cold
winter night, a sword was born to our hands that cleaved the
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