Bulgarian folk tale
Every thought and feeling is recorded
September 11th 2022
The Bulgarian folk tale ‘Czar Troyan’ tells the story of a king who woke up one morning to find that he had grown a pair goat’s ears. Of course from that day on, he did everything he could to hide them, and no one knew anything about it except his barber who shaved him every day, and who had promised not to say a word. But it was a difficult secret for the barber to keep, and one day, unable to bear it any longer, he went into the forest, lay flat on the ground and whispered his secret to the earth: ‘Czar Troyan has goat’s ears.’ After that, he went home feeling relieved. Sometime later, a tree grew in that very same spot. It was a strange tree; children made whistles out of its branches, and when they blew into them you could hear the words: ‘Czar Troyan has goat’s ears. Czar Troyan has goat’s ears.’ The king eventually learned of this and called his barber, who tried to defend himself by saying that he had only confided this secret to the earth. Yes, but he should not have said anything – not even to the earth.
This initiatic tale is the same as the Greek legend of King Midas who had donkey’s ears. It shows that everything is recorded and transmitted. We say too that the walls have ears. Your every thought and feeling is recorded in yourself first of all, but also in everything around you, and this means that one day everybody will know them.
