“The boy said, " What are the three questions ? " The King said, " The first is, how many drops of water are there in the ocean ? " The shepherd boy answered, " Lord King, if you will have all the rivers on earth dammed up so that not a single drop runs from them into the sea until I have counted it, I will tell you how many drops there are in the sea." The King said, " The next question is, how many stars are there in the sky ?”

— Grimm's Household Tales: With the Author's Notes, Tale 152 · served from our shelf uncorrected OCR — being verified against the scan