Princess Brightness and the Flying Shoemaker

A witch from the Black Forest killed and roasted the golden cock which used to wake up the Sun, and the Sun has not risen in the sky since then. The king hears the cock's owner, the Sun Lady, and summons the culprit to the castle. The witch arrives with her daughter Blackness. The king acknowledges the truth to the Sun Lady and the offended witch foretells to him that his only daughter Brightness will marry a grubby shoemaker. The king puts the princess to home confinement in a tower to make sure. In the forest, the witch discovers two young craftsmen arguing about their competence and skill with each other. The witch turns her helper called Buster into a rich lord who orders the two youngsters to create a masterpiece. The smith's apprentice Ondra forges a walking and egg-laying iron hen while the shoemaker Jíra sews wings of leather and speedily flies away. He lands in the settlement round a castle and an old shoemaker gives him work. Jíra learns about the confined princess and flies up to the tower to see her. The two fall in love with each other instantly. The next day, Jíra makes beautiful red shoes for Brightness. When the king finds them in the tower and it becomes clear that he will never allow them to marry, the couple flies away on the leather wings. The king's cavalry men search for them everywhere, but in vain. The young couple is very happy together – Jíra sews shoes, Brightness sells them in a market and rather clumsily tends to the household. The witch and her daughter get upset that the young couple's room is always full of love and laughter in spite of all their difficulties. They disguise themselves as rich customers and kidnap Brightness. The red shoe left after her on the floor then shows Jíra the way to his beloved woman. When he repairs the Sun Lady's fiery shoes, she gives him a magic ring as reward. Brightness in the meantime with stands torture and even refuses the oblivion potion which the witch slips her and which returns memory to those who take it – but only if they find what they have not lost. Jíra overcomes many hardships on his journey and, when the ring burns down the castle with the two witches in it, he sets Brightness free. But he drinks the magic potion by mistake and forgets about the girl who was taken to the king's castle by a cavalry man. The king orders Brightness to pick a groom from among her suitors. The princess wants the man who would bring her the missing red shoe. The black prince commissions it from the old shoemaker who in turn entrusts its making to Jíra. The young man finds Brightness's shoe hidden amongst the tools. The magic spell is broken and Jíra flies to his bride. And the king must cope with the fact that his son-in-law is a shoemaker.