The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship

The Flying Ship or The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship is a Russian fairy tale. Andrew Lang included it in The Yellow Fairy Book and Arthur Ransome in Old Peters Russian Tales.

A couple had three sons, and the youngest was a fool. One day, the Tsar declared that whoever made him a ship that could sail through the air would marry his daughter. The older two set out, with everything their parents could give them then the youngest set out as well, despite their ridicule and being given less fine food. He met a little man and, when the man asked to share, he hesitated only because it was not fit. But when he opened it, the food had become fine.The man told him how to strike a tree with an axe then, he was not to look at it but fall to his knees. When he was lifted up, he would find the tree had been turned into a boat, and could fly it to the Tsars palace, but he should give anyone who asked a lift. He obeyed. ........

Source: Wikipedia