Stories · How Things Came to Be

The Flute Player and the River King

12 min · Europe · Calm · Wisdom

An old flute player who greets each dawn on a quiet river is offered a chest of gold by a mysterious king of the deep water. He accepts it gently, gives it away just as gently, and returns to his morning song, discovering that the fortune he already carries cannot be spent, stolen, or improved upon.

Retold from Old Peter's Russian Tales, by Arthur Ransome.

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Story 6 of How Things Came to Be, starting at 1:09:14.