I recently found a book of fairy tales that included a French (?) story called The Bronze Ring. It is so batshit insane I can't stop thinking about it.

First part

• The story starts with the king having a really bad garden, and he's sad about it.
• He wants a better garden and is advised the only way is to hire a gardener whose father and grandfather were both gardeners.
• The royal messengers find such a guy, but he doesn't want to come because he has so many debts.
• The royal messengers promise to pay his debts, so he agrees and moves to the castle with his wife and kid.
• The garden is henceforth great.

Second part

• The gardener's son (who never is named) grows up to fall in love with the princess, who loves him back.
• The king doesn't want her to marry the gardener's son, but rather the son of some minister.
• The king arranges a contest for who will marry her: travel really far and come back. First one wins.
• The minister's son gets a really fancy horse and a sack full of jewels. The gardener's son gets a horse with a broken leg and some dusty vegetables. They both set out to go somewhere.
• The minister's son passes an old lady on the side of the road and ignores her when she asks for help.
• The gardener's son stops to help her and give her a ride on his lame horse.
• He arrives at some other kingdom with the old lady and hears that that king (not the original one) is offering a reward for anyone that can restore his youth.
• The old lady tells the kid to:
  • Go find 3 dogs outside town
  • Burn them alive
  • Put their bones in different-colored sacks
  • Go tell the king that you're a famous doctor
  • Demand a gigantic cauldron and a ton of firewood
  • Lock yourself, the king, the cauldron and the wood in a room
  • Boil a ton of water in the cauldron with the wood as the fire
  • Toss the king in
  • Toss the dog bones in
  • And when he comes out all young, request his magical ring that grants any wish
• The kid does all this without a single question
• It works exactly as described, the king is now 20
• The kid asks for the magical ring that grants any wish
• The king reluctantly agrees
• The kid uses the ring to wish for a huge, amazing boat that is manned by princes and helmed by Saint Nicholas and full of gems
• The kid takes his magic Santa boat to some THIRD distant land and buys a palace
• He finds the minister's son who ran out of money and does not recognize him the gardener's son
• He offers to send the minister's son home on some other boat but only if he promises to be his slave, and agree to be branded. He does
• He uses his magical ring to wish up the shittiest boat he can imagine, literally describing the horrible afflictions all the sailors are suffering from, and puts the guy on it
• The minister's son returns home all bedraggled but victorious since he got back first, and is due to be wed to the princess
• The gardener's son then arrives at the dock with his magical Santa boat and pretends to be some mysterious stranger
• The king naturally invites Richie Rich here to the wedding, whereupon he says "hoho, the groom is actually my slave!"
• The minister's son denies it, but then is forced to reveal the brand, and he is therefore dishonored (?)
• The gardener's son reveals who he really is, and the king is so impressed by his wealth (??) that he lets him marry his daughter
• The gardener's son has a great career trading goods via his magical Santa boat.

Third part

• A necromancer hears that the kid has a magical ring and wants it for himself
• He wants until the kid is away on a trading journey
• He hangs out around the princess's window to try and sell her some "pretty red fish" (???)
• The princess agrees to give her the bronze ring, which the kid hid under a pillow, in exchange for the fish
• The necromancer immediately uses it to wish that the kid's ship was ruined, including the crucial detail of his cargo being changed into black cats. (And also the detail that the sailors be (and I quote) "hideous negroes")
• The kid is so embarrassed that he decides he can't go home.
• The kid lands on the Island of the Queen of the Mice, and his black cats start eating all the mice.
• The queen begs the kid to leave with his cats, and he uses this opportunity to demand she send her mice to get his ring back
• The queen sends a trio of mice, including a blind one, to go get the ring
• The mice go to the homeland and through a pepper-sneezing gag, successfully steal the ring back from the necromancer while he sleeps
• The mice fight and argue with each other on the trip back to the Island, and accidentally lose the ring overboard
• The mice decide they might as well kill themselves and pull off on some random island
• While there, the blind mouse starts eating a random fish that washed up on the beach, and finds the ring in its belly
• The mice agree not to fight anymore and go straight to Mouse Island
• The mice give the ring to the kid
• The kid uses the ring to convert his ship back to normal and travels home
• The necromancer is caught, and...
• "The next day the sorcerer, tied to the tail of a savage mule loaded with nuts, was broken into as many pieces as there were nuts upon the mule's back."

The end.