Introduction
“The Bird of Truth” (Spanish: El pájaro de la verdad) is a classic Iberian wonder-tale, told across Spain and the wider Mediterranean. It belongs to the family of calumniated-queen stories, where a rightful mother is falsely accused and only a quest—culminating in a truth-telling bird—can set the record straight. Typical Spanish versions keep the twins, the jealous plot, the foster-home by the sea, a triad of warning old men, the temptation of glittering traps (golden cages, golden horses), and the final courtroom-like unmasking where the bird, once brought to court, speaks plain truth.
The story
There once were a king and a queen who longed for children. At last, the queen bore twins—a boy and a girl—so beautiful that candles seemed to burn more steadily in their presence. But envy was awake in the palace. The king’s two jealous sisters (some say ladies-in-waiting) conspired: on the night of the birth they hid the babies in a chest and sent it down to the sea, then laid two puppies in the cradle.
Come morning, the sisters cried: “Alas, Majesty! Your queen has whelped dogs!” The king, stricken and shamed, would not kill his wife, but he ordered her shut away in a tower, to see no one and speak to no one, “until truth itself should speak for her.”
Meanwhile, the tide brought the little chest to a fisherman’s cove. The fisherman and his wife prised it open and found the two infants wrapped in palace linen. Childless and tender-hearted, they raised the twins as their own and named them Juan and María.
The children grew straight and bright. People who saw them whispered, “There’s courtly blood in those two.” When they were nearly grown, an old pilgrim passed the cottage and, seeing the pair, shook his head as if listening to something only he could hear.
“Children,” he said, “if you wish to know who you are, you must win the Bird of Truth. Only that bird speaks what is and what is not, and it will name your father and your mother before all men.”
“Where is this bird?” asked Juan.
The pilgrim sighed. “Far away, in an enchanter’s garden where everything that glitters is a trap. Remember me, and remember this: take nothing golden. Choose the plain thing, though your hand itch for the shining. On your road you will meet three hermits; heed their counsel.”
Juan set out at once. María, stitching a little purse, said only, “Come back, brother.” He laughed and promised.
At the first crossroads, an old hermit leaned on a staff.
“Grandfather,” said Juan, “the Bird of Truth?”
“You go to a hard house,” said the hermit, and gave him a crust of bread. “It will never be finished. Feed those who ask; the grateful will be your friends. And take no golden cage.”
At the second crossroads, another hermit gave him a bridle. “Put this on the sorriest nag you find; do not touch the golden horse.”
At the third, a hermit handed him a little jar. “Water of Life. Spill it on no stone unless you mean to raise what’s under it.”
Juan bowed to wisdom—and then forgot it at the gate.
For the enchanter’s garden was the very picture of desire: trees hung with candled fruit, a fountain that leapt in measures, apples that sang when the wind passed, and on a marble plinth a golden cage, bright as noon. In it perched a small grey bird with a clear black eye.
“I am the Bird of Truth,” it said very softly. “Take me in the wicker cage by the gate.”
Juan heard—yet his hand reached for splendour. The moment he touched the golden cage, bells screamed, lions roared, marble men sprang to life, and the enchanter’s guards seized him. In a blink he was in a deep cell, staring at walls scratched by other hasty hands.
Days passed. When Juan did not return, María wrapped a loaf and her courage and went the same road.
She met the first hermit.
“Grandfather, the Bird of Truth?”
“Child,” said he, “feed the hungry.” She did, and the road’s small mouths—sparrows, ants, a fox with a torn ear—ate from her hands and followed in the hedge-shadows.
The second hermit gave her the bridle. “For the shabby mare over there,” he nodded. María passed a golden stallion and chose a lean, moth-eaten creature; under the bridle it stepped like a prince.
The third gave her the jar. “For a time of need,” he said, “and mind: the plain cage.”
María reached the garden at dusk. She looked once at the golden cage—and then at the wicker one half-hidden in ivy. She took the wicker cage and the bird hopped in without a cry. On a low rail stood a golden horse, pawing the marble; in the stable beyond, a dull-coated mare; she chose the mare. A corridor glittered with knives of light and a golden key on a chain; she took the iron key that hung on a nail.
With each modest choice, the garden sighed and slept more deeply. At the last door she heard her brother’s voice, thin with despair.
“Who’s there?”
“Your sister,” she said, and the iron key turned. Juan stumbled out and caught her hands.
“Oh, fool that I am,” he said. “I was warned.”
They hurried to the gate with the wicker cage under María’s arm. Trumpets began to wail; guards sprang up like thistles. The shabby mare reared, and the fox with the torn ear darted to nip an ankle; the sparrows flew in a cloud; the ants poured over a threshold and tangled feet. Brother and sister were almost free when the pavement itself heaved, and a forest of stone statues—young men with frightened faces—blocked the way.
“Water of Life,” whispered María, and dashed a drop from the jar. The nearest statue shuddered and breathed. She splashed another and another; the stony host woke, looked about them, and with a roar of gratitude turned on the enchanter’s men. In the rush, the twins gained the gate and their sorry mare became, with a shake, a creature swift as thought.
They did not stop until they saw the fisherman’s roof. That night the Bird of Truth ate crumbs from María’s palm and said, in its clear voice:
“I am the Bird of Truth. I speak what is and what is not.
Bring me before the king, and I shall set a mother free.”
In the morning the twins went up to the city. On the square they set a little stall with the Dancing Water (which María had dipped from the enchanter’s fountain, and which now leapt and chimed in a glass bowl), the Singing Apple (which rang like a bell when the wind touched it), and the wicker cage with the quiet bird. People gathered; the king’s steward saw and ran to tell his master.
The king came down, grave and distant. He glanced once at the Dancing Water and stood quite still; he had not smiled since the day he believed his honour ruined. He turned to the cage.
“What bird is this?” he asked.
“It is the Bird of Truth, Sire,” said María.
“And what truth has it to speak?” said the king, already impatient with hope.
María opened the little wicker door. The bird hopped to the rim, shook its feathers, and looked the king full in the face.
“Majesty, your queen bore you twins—
Not hounds, but children with royal chins.
They were stolen away in a chest to the sea;
Here stand your son and your daughter—see.”
A silence fell that rang more loudly than bells. The king’s hand went to his mouth. The twins stepped forward together and bowed. The bird turned its head towards the two old princesses who stood stiff by a pillar.
“Those who lied sit there in silk,
Their tongues were gall, their faces milk.
Truth is a blade that does not rust;
Bring forth the queen, and do her justice.”
“Bring her,” said the king, with a voice that made courtiers remember their knees.
They brought the queen from the tower, thin as a candle, eyes lit from within. She looked once at the twins and swayed; María caught her, and Juan took her hand. The Bird of Truth hopped to the king’s shoulder and spoke low for him alone:
“What is—stands before you.
What is not—lies behind you.
Choose.”
“I choose what is,” said the king. And in that breath, he turned to his wife and fell at her feet. “Forgive me,” he said simply.
Judgement was swift thereafter. The two who had lied were stripped of their borrowed honours and sent away (some say in rags with a wooden bucket; some say worse befell them). The fisherman and his wife were seated in the place of guests and loaded with thanks that made them blush. As for the stony youths raised by María’s hand, many found their homes again; one, a prince, asked for María’s hand, but she said, smiling, that she would first teach her brother to remember good advice.
The Bird of Truth, having spoken, asked only a branch by the window where it could sit and watch the seasons. It sang on feast days and on the queen’s birthday, and its feathers shone brighter when anyone in the palace told the truth.
And if ever the king hesitated between pride and justice, the bird cocked its head and said, with its old, clear courtesy:
“Truth first, Majesty. Truth first.”
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