Legends From River and Mountain by Carmen Sylva

Not far from the pretty little mountain-town of Câmpa Lungo, a clear, cool stream winds along, called _Rîul Doamnei_ -- "the river of the Princess. " This stream washes down gold along its bed, sometimes a bit half the size of one's nail; and it was a custom in times gone by that all the gold found there should belong to the Princess, the wife of the ruler of the land. And this is the reason why: --

There was once a great famine in the land of Roumania, such a famine as had never been known in the memory of man. First the locusts had come into the land, in such swarms that the sun was darkened, and wherever they settled they devastated everything, so that in a few minutes the fairest field of corn would be left bald as a threshing-floor, and the trees, stripped of every leaf, stretched out their naked boughs against the summer sky, beneath whose cloudless blue the heat grew ever greater and greater, so that even at night there was no longer a breath of coolness in the air. As soon as all things around were devoured, the cloud of locusts would arise, only to settle instantly again upon the next green patch. And so it went on unceasingly; and in those days folk were not so clever as they are now, when they cover the great stretches of land where the insects have settled, with petroleum, and set it all on fire. Nor were there then any cannon with which they could shoot into the swarm of flying locusts, as they do now, and so sometimes contrive to scatter them.