One-Eye, Two-Eyes, and Three-Eyes

A woman had three daughters — one with only a single eye in the middle of her forehead, one with the usual two, and one with three — and doted entirely on her two unusual daughters while treating the ordinary middle child, Two-Eyes, with open contempt, starving her and dressing her in rags simply for looking like everyone else.

Sent out to herd the family's one goat and given almost nothing to eat, Two-Eyes wept from hunger one day until a wise woman appeared and taught her a magic verse: speaking it to the goat would summon a table spread with a full feast, and a second verse would make the table vanish again once she'd eaten her fill. Two-Eyes ate well every day after that and grew healthy and strong, arousing her jealous sisters' suspicion, since she no longer touched the meager food they gave her.

One-Eye was sent to spy and, made to fall asleep by Two-Eyes' clever song before the feast appeared, saw nothing; the same trick worked on Three-Eyes' first two eyes, but her unnoticed third eye stayed open and witnessed everything. Furious, the mother had the goat slaughtered — but the wise woman returned once more, instructing Two-Eyes to bury the goat's entrails in the ground, from which grew a magnificent tree bearing silver leaves and golden fruit that only Two-Eyes herself could ever pick, its branches lifting away from anyone else who tried. When a passing knight saw the tree and asked for a golden apple as a token, only Two-Eyes could give him one — and recognizing her quiet decency at once, he took her away to marry him, leaving behind two sisters whose unusual eyes had won them everything except the one thing that actually mattered.