Once upon a time, there was a young king who always complained about his bad luck. It is true that every time they played “The Game of the Goose” in the palace, he always lost. It is also true that, when he went fishing, while the others caught tons of fish, the most he caught was a bad cold.
“How unlucky I am! Not only do I have to spend my entire day working, for example – hunting, reading, waving from my carriage, or attending parties – but then, besides that, I have bad luck every day, too! How long will I have to put up with it?!” he said to himself.
But everything changed the day the king tried on a pair of strange underpants for the first time. They had a rainbow drawn on the front, and on the butt was written in pink letters, “If you hear me explode, you have to cover your nose.”
“They look great on me,” said the king, looking at himself in the mirror. “They fit me like a glove. What luck!”
That day the young king played “The Game of the Goose” and won. He also went fishing and, for the first time, he couldn’t stop pulling fish out of the water.
“Oh, at last! These new underpants have brought me good luck. I’d better not take them off, or I might break the spell.”
The next day the king continued to have good luck. News reached him that a ship of his had discovered a new continent, full of silver and gold.
“It’s incredible! These underpants are awesome! I’ll never take them off!”
As you can imagine, the underpants were taking on a disgusting smell. He knew it, but he didn’t care. He kept his word and never changed his underpants, not even to wash them.
When he was very old, the dirty and stinky pig of a king died. His son, the prince, inherited the throne.
“Your Majesty, we have to talk with you about a delicate matter,” they told him.
“Your father died with his dirty old underpants on. Should we take them off in order to bury him?”
“Take them off, for God’s sake! What a thing to ask! And then bring them to me. I’ll think about what to do with them.”
After a little while, the new king received a small package in his room. It was his father’s disgusting underpants. What a stench!
Without a moment’s hesitation, he took off his clothes, opened the box, and put on the underpants. His reign was long and full of surprises, all of them very good. He was always very lucky.