00:06From medieval Israel comes the story of the princess in the tower.
00:11In this story, King Solomon tries to ensure that his daughter will meet and marry a great ruler by locking
00:17her up in a tower.
00:18Like Rapunzel and Fenchelchen, however, King Solomon's daughter is helped by magic to marry the true love of her life.
00:39King Solomon was a wise old man whose hair was as white as snow.
00:45This is the story of how his hair turned white.
00:48King Solomon once had black hair, and he had the face of a handsome young man.
00:54One day he happened to be talking to an eagle.
00:57You see, he knew how to speak the language of birds.
01:00And that eagle told him that within a year, his daughter, the beautiful Keziah, was going to marry a poor
01:07man.
01:09Solomon loved Keziah as much as any man could love his daughter.
01:13The last thing in the world that he might want was for Keziah to marry a poor man.
01:17So Solomon called together the armies of ancient Israel, put them on a fleet of sailing ships,
01:23and they traveled to an island in the middle of the sea.
01:27There, the armies of Israel built a tower that had only one door and only one room at the very
01:33top.
01:35King Solomon furnished that tower with beautiful treasures and put his daughter Keziah into that room.
01:42Then he bricked up the door to the tower.
01:45When he sailed away with his armies, King Solomon promised Keziah that he would set her free at the end
01:51of a year.
01:53He thought he was pretty smart.
01:55After all, how could his daughter marry a poor man if she was locked in a tower?
02:00Meanwhile, in a city far away, there lived a poor man named Reuben.
02:06Reuben was a scholar.
02:08So although he was poor in possessions, he was rich in knowledge and learning.
02:13In fact, Reuben was so smart that he was the only other person besides King Solomon who could speak the
02:20language of birds.
02:22One night, when the moon was full, an eagle came and whispered in Reuben's ear.
02:30That eagle picked up Reuben and carried him high into the air.
02:36The eagle flew over a wide, wide ocean.
02:41And that eagle flew right up to the tower that King Solomon built and carried Reuben into the room where
02:46Keziah lived.
02:49The next morning, Keziah found a handsome young man in her tower.
02:55Instantly, Keziah and Reuben fell in love.
02:59They married themselves with the angels as witnesses.
03:03And they had a baby boy who made them both as happy as they had ever been.
03:09At the end of the year, King Solomon sailed to the tower to bring his daughter home.
03:13But when he arrived, he got a surprise.
03:16He saw a poor man inside the tower, and the man was holding a baby boy, King Solomon's grandson.
03:26King Solomon said,
03:29And his hair turned white.
03:33Of course, Solomon was a wise man.
03:36And pretty soon, he saw how learned Reuben was and how beautiful the baby was.
03:44Then he understood that this marriage was the will of God.
03:49So, they all sailed back home and lived happily ever after.
04:20Thanks for listening.
04:23Thanks a lot.
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