The Impossible Enchantment

(This month I am reposting relevant blogs in preparation for the release of my upcoming short story collection - every blog shared is about a fairy tale that inspired one of the stories. 

Last time we finally finished our long search for “The Impossible Enchantment.” So today I thought it would be fun to go through the whole story, as the version I told from memory a couple weeks ago, before finally tracking down the source, was lacking in several details, and outright wrong in others. Which, well, in my defense I hadn’t read it in about fifteen years.

Once a king fell in love with a beautiful but unkind woman. When they had been married for some time, the woman offended a fairy, and as punishment was taken into her service. When a few months had passed, the woman gave birth to a daughter; the fairy sent her home to her husband, and kept the child to raise as her own.

When the queen of the fairies discovered how kindly her subject treated the daughter of the woman who had offended her, and by extension the entire fairy race, she became very angry. She sent the girl to live trapped in a palace by the sea, with only one servant for company. There, she said, the girl would stay until she held in her arms a man she loved, who loved her as well.

When the girl had been at the palace for some time, a merman took a liking to her, and began to bring her gifts. He was very ugly, and the girl wanted nothing to do with him, though she did accept his gifts. One day the merman brought with him his sister, who, unlike her brother, spoke the girl’s language. The two quickly became friends, though the girl still wanted nothing to do with her aquatic suitor.

She told the mermaid of her plight, and one day the mermaid brought to see her a fairy of her own race. The girl asked the sea fairy to break her enchantment and free her from the palace, but alas, the fairy had no power on land. She encouraged the girl to accept the merman’s suit, for she would then turn the girl into a mermaid as well, and she could live quite happily with them in the sea.

The girl began to consider this seriously. Her servant was alarmed by this turn of events. It occurred to her that the girl had lived in this place for many years now, and may not remember what a proper, human suitor ought to look like. Surely, if she were reminded, she would not consent to marry someone so ugly as the merman.

The servant, who was a painter, created for the girl a portrait of a very handsome man, and the girl agreed that, if human men looked like this, surely she could not settle for an ugly merman instead.

There was, meanwhile, a prince on a ship sailing not far from the island, who happened to catch a glimpse of the girl in his telescope. He fell instantly in love, and with the help of a fairy he knew, sent a message by pigeon, asking for her hand in marriage.

The girl replied that she could not possibly agree to marriage without first seeing what he looked like, and so he sent a portrait by pigeon as well. The girl was delighted to see that the prince strongly resembled the painting made by her servant, and agreed promptly to the marriage.

The difficulty, then, was how to reach the girl, for the enchantment around the palace was too strong for the ship to pass through.

While the prince pondered this difficulty, the girl explained to the mermaids, both her friend and the fairy, that she could not possibly marry someone so ugly as the merman. They were greatly upset by this, and planned to tear down the foundation of the palace and drown her.

The prince arranged for his own fairy to turn him into a hummingbird, and flew to the enchanted palace. The mermaids had by this time made good progress at destroying it, and the girl and her servant were very afraid. But as soon as the prince turned from a hummingbird back into a man, and he and the girl embraced, the terms of the fairy queen’s curse were met, and the girl was free. She, her servant, and the prince were all transported instantly back to the fairy who had raised her. 

This fairy took the girl back to her father; her wicked mother had by this time died, and the old king was overjoyed to have family again. And so the girl and the prince were married, and all lived happily ever after.

 

(Order The Shoemaker Prince to read a story inspired by this fairy tale, and 13 more!)

The Golden Root

(This month I am reposting relevant blogs in preparation for the release of my upcoming short story collection - every blog shared is about a fairy tale that inspired one of the stories.) 

(Also, this is definitely the loosest inspiration in the book, so, like, don't worry.)

Last Christmas I was given Il Pentamerone, by Giambattista Basile. This is the collection of fairy tales that contains the infamous story where Sleeping Beauty gets raped. So right away you know it’s gonna be interesting, at least. (The weird part is that I asked for this book.)

But Sleeping Beauty is old news. Let’s talk about The Golden Root. No one knows about it, and it is definitely worth knowing.

The Golden Root actually shows up immediately after Sun, Moon, and Talia (Sleeping Beauty). Fourth Diversion, Fifth Day. (Il Pentamerone has a frame narrative. Kind of like The Arabian Nights. There’s this group of ten people telling stories to this pregnant girl. Each person tells her one story every day for five days. The guy who got this girl pregnant is supposed to be with another girl who’s one of the storytellers. The pregnant girl is black. Remember that. That’s important. The black girl stole some other girl’s charming prince and then got pregnant.)

So The Golden Root starts with this girl, Parmetella, the third daughter of a poor gardener. Parm takes her pig out to the forest because her sisters are taking their pigs to the pasture, and they won’t let her come. But in the forest she finds a really cool pasture ground, and a tree with golden leaves. She takes these leaves home to her father every night, until the tree is bare. Then she notices that the tree also has a golden root, so she goes home for an axe, then she chops it off and pulls it away from the tree.

Under the root there’s a staircase. Parm goes down the staircase, finds a palace, and meets a black guy. (Again, this is important. Remember this.) The black guy proposes, and she says yes, and they take a flying carriage to a different palace.

Then we get a whole bunch of weird euphemisms. Like, really weird. He cards her wool, but he doesn’t comb it. He sucks the first egg of the beauteous chicken. Anyway, basically they sleep together, but first he makes her put out the lights. Then, when she can’t see him, he becomes a handsome youth.

So what we have here, basically, is the specific type of Enchanted Bridegroom story that I like to call “Only Hot When You Can’t See Them.” Think Cupid and Psyche, East of the Sun West of the Moon.

And then think about how when the prince in East of the Sun West of the Moon wasn’t hot, he was a POLAR BEAR. Think about Enchanted Bridegroom stories. Think about Beauty and the Beast.

And now, remember that during the day he was a black guy.

Someone cursed him to be black. His Beast form is a black guy. Like turning a guy black is the same kind of thing as turning him into a polar bear.

Now remember how the pregnant girl who stole someone else’s boyfriend in the frame story was black, too? Also, a whole bunch of girls in other stories, evil stepsisters and evil boyfriend-stealing servants, rotten girls who take everything from the innocent heroine—they’re black too. All of the black girls are evil. I can’t remember if there are other black guys, but this one is playing the Beast in our enchanted bridegroom story.

Now sometimes I misunderstand these things, but this is racist, right? Like, really, really racist? Because I read this book for the first time when I was thirteenish, and even more clueless than I am now, and I didn’t even notice, that first time, that Sleeping Beauty was getting raped. But this I noticed right away. Like seriously, Basile, dude, what is your problem?

Anyway. Back to the story. Parm, of course, is curious about who or what she’s sleeping with. So she lights a candle and sees how incredibly hot and white he is, and then he wakes up. He wakes up and begins to curse and swear, and this is my favorite moment, this is the one moment that’s actually good, as opposed to so-messed-up-it’s-kinda-funny, because if I’d been this close to being uncursed, and some dumb girl did that thing I’d specifically told her not to, I would totally be swearing. I would be so incredibly pissed at her. You never see Cupid or the polar bear getting mad.

When he’s done swearing, Hot Guy tells Parm that he’s gotta be a black guy for another seven years now, and then he takes off. Parm goes outside and meets a fairy, who tells her to find seven girls on a roof, then gives her a bunch of presents that’ll keep them from hurting her.

She finds the girls. She also finds out they’re Hot Guy’s sisters, and then meets their mom, who is inexplicably an ogre. No word on why Hot Guy is not an ogre. But they’re all pissed at her, because Hot Guy is black, and they can’t hurt her because of the fairy, and somehow she ends up sort of working for them.

Ogre Mom gives Parm some impossible chores. Hot Guy (who is no longer black, so those seven years sure went fast) yells about how stupid she is and then helps her. Also, we find out his name. Hot Guy=Thunder-and-Lightning.

Ogre Mom is pissed about this, and sends Parm to get something from her sister. The sister is also an ogre, and the fairy did nothing to protect Parm from her. So Parm goes, not knowing that it’s a trap, and Thunder finds her. Because apparently just not going to see the crazy ogre lady is not an option, nor is sending Thunder in her place, he tells her how to escape after she gets there. This is very complicated and has several steps, but basically what it comes down to is “Throw her baby in the oven, grab Mom’s box, and run.”

That’s right. He tells her to bake his baby cousin. Don’t worry, it doesn’t really matter, it’s just an ogre’s kid.

Um, Thunder? Last time I checked, you were also an ogre’s kid.

So Parm murders the baby, opens the box, gets rescued and yelled at by Thunder, and delivers the box to Ogre Mom. Then it’s time for Thunder to get married.

His bride is an ogre, too. I’m still wondering why he’s not an ogre, but whatever. They have the wedding. They have the reception. Thunder sits between Parm and Ogre Bride. Thunder’s a little drunk by now, and he’s shamelessly flirting with Parm, right there in front of his new wife. It’s kinda the first time he’s been nice to her since he was black.

Thunder wants Parm to kiss him. Parm is like, “Dude, you just married that girl over there. Like, five minutes ago. I’m not kissing you.” But Ogre Bride says, “Oh, just go ahead and kiss him. He’s really hot. Once I kissed a shepherd who gave me two chestnuts.” 

(Not clear on the relevancy of the chestnuts, here.)

Ogre Mom and the sisters take off, so then it’s just Thunder, Parm, and Ogre Bride, and Thunder’s whining some more about how Parm won’t kiss him, and Ogre Bride says the same thing again.

Thunder flips out. He slits her throat, buries her in the cellar, and gets with Parm, who, oddly enough, has no problem sleeping with a homicidal maniac who killed his last wife on their wedding day, literally half an hour ago.

Also, he calls her an “ass of honour.”

When Ogre Mom finds out what happened, she’s pissed. She goes to see her sister, but after Parm murdered her baby, the sister threw herself into the oven, too. Ogre Mom is so upset by this development that she turns into a ram and headbutts the wall until her skull cracks. Then Parm and Thunder and his sisters live happily ever after. Racism, infanticide, weird double standards, alarmingly unbalanced relationships, this story just has everything. So if you’re ever looking for a new fairy tale to read—

Actually, you should probably just stick with King Thrushbeard or something. At least no one dies.

 

(Order The Shoemaker Prince to read a story inspired by this fairy tale, and 13 more!)

King Thrushbeard

(This month I am reposting relevant blogs in preparation for the release of my upcoming short story collection - every blog shared is about a fairy tale that inspired one of the stories.)

King Thrushbeard has always been one of my favorite fairy tales. Top five, easily. (The top five, in no particular order: King Thrushbeard, Prince Lindworm, Donkey Cabbages, East of the Sun West of the Moon, and Beauty and the Beast.) This is partly because (spoiler) I'm a total sucker for secret identities (I blame this on early exposure to Robin Hood and The Princess Bride), and I think partly because of a blog post I read years and years and years ago, which analyzed King Thrushbeard as a Christian allegory. It was a really fascinating post, and I wish I could link it for you, but I first encountered it over a decade ago, and I wouldn't know where to even begin looking for it now.

So recently I reread King Thrushbeard for the first time in at least five years. Which. Kind of a mistake. Some things are just better in memory. (Which is why I no longer read favorite books from my childhood. Some things you just can't bear to have ruined by, like, good taste.)

Anyway. Let's get into it.

Our story starts with a princess who doesn't want to get married, which. Fair. But we're in a setting where,  like, you kinda gotta anyway. Princesses in this culture are not doing a lot of marrying for love, even in fairy tales. And our girl, she's being pretty much as difficult as possible about it. Her father keeps on bringing in suitors, and she keeps on rejecting them in the rudest ways possible. Mostly stuff about their physical appearances. "I can't marry this guy; he's so fat he looks like a wine barrel." "He's so red he looks like a rooster." "His chin is so crooked it looks like a thrush's beak." Etc., etc. Except that the thrush beak one - I'm glancing through the pitt.edu version as I write this post and that's what it says, but in other translations I know they've said his beard looks like a thrush's nest, which makes much more sense to me because facial hair is much more easily changed than chin shape.

Now, okay, I get that marrying a total stranger to strengthen your father's political alliances isn't fun. But insulting powerful men as you reject them is just not the best idea, hon. You're gonna cause problems there. People are gonna blame your dad for your rudeness and not want to be in treaties with him anymore. Which you should know.

So. Dad gets fed up with this whole thing after princess rejects the latest batch of suitors, and swears to marry her to the next beggar that comes to the door. Minstrel beggar comes by shortly afterwards, and beggar and princess are married despite strenuous objections by both. King kicks princess out, because it's "not proper for a beggar's wife to live in the palace."

Princess and beggar walk a ways. They pass through a number of beautiful places owned by King Thrushbeard (which is what we're calling chin/beard dude now), and princess bemoans her foolishness in refusing to marry him. Out loud, which her new husband points out is pretty rude, as she's married to him now.

Eventually they reach the tiny hut where they're going to live. Princess is shocked and horrified by lack of servants. Beggar immediately sets her to cooking and housework, neither of which she has any idea how to do. And then he decides she needs to get a job.

(Once he gets married we never see him beg again, or do any other kind of work; he just expects his brand new wife with no marketable skills to provide for him and contributes absolutely nothing to the relationship. Fantastic. Real stand-up guy.)

Princess is set to weaving baskets, but the materials cut her delicate princess hands. She's set to spinning thread, but those materials also cut her delicate princess hands, and, like, what? Exactly how delicate do your hands have to be to be cut by thread? Apparently we just have a full-on Princess and the Pea situation here. Okay.

Beggar sets her to selling pottery in the marketplace. That goes really well; people buy her pots because she's pretty and sad and they feel sorry for her. This is apparently pottery that the beggar bought from someone else, making the princess sort of the middleman here. Which is where the trouble comes in; some drunk dude on a horse comes through the market and smashes all her pots. Which she and the beggar then have to pay for.

And of course, according to the beggar, this is all her fault, because of the part of the market she chose to work in? If she'd set up somewhere else the pots wouldn't have been trampled. And, like, I'm not liking the beggar. Not an appealing character. Kind of a jerk.

He gets the princess a job as a kitchen maid at King Thrushbeard's palace. She starts smuggling food home in her pockets, which will become relevant in a minute here, because she and her husband are very poor, and food is hard to come by.

All goes well until the king's wedding day. She's got her pockets full of food, and the king - King Thrushbeard, who she so rudely rejected - demands that she, a random kitchen maid, dance with him. While they're dancing, all her pockets burst, spilling the stolen food, and she's in filthy rags in a ballroom in front of a suitor she rejected, so she makes the only logical choice and runs right out of there.

The king follows her. He says, "Surprise! I'm your beggar husband and somehow you didn't recognize me just now? I orchestrated this whole big thing - the marriage, the broken pots, that fun little wardrobe malfunction you just had - to teach you a lesson. And now that you've learned it we can live happily ever after!"

To which the princess replies, "I suck and I'm not worthy to be your wife," which. Just. Oh, honey, no. You were really rude to him once, so he made the next several months of your life a living hell. You are not the unworthy one. Why do you think you're unworthy? Is this Stockholm Syndrome? Do you have Stockholm Syndrome? Is that even how Stockholm Syndrome works? Probably not, but I am Concerned.

(One of these days I'd like to make it through a whole fairy tale summary without being Concerned. Hasn't happened yet.)

So. The wedding that's happening is her surprise wedding, she changes clothes quick before the ceremony, and they live happily ever after. Good times. Our beggar/Thrushbeard was a lot more likeable in my memory before this reread.

 

(Order The Shoemaker Prince to read a story inspired by this fairy tale, and 13 more!)

Riquet with the Tuft

(This month I am reposting relevant blogs in preparation for the release of my upcoming short story collection - every blog shared is about a fairy tale that inspired one of the stories.)

So first off, a quick overview of French fairy tales. There were a whole bunch of really cool ladies writing really cool stories. The Salon Writers. And one guy, who wrote a few cool stories but occasionally just straight up ripped off their stories. So, of course, a couple hundred years later everyone knows the dude, and all the ladies and all their cool stories have been pretty much forgotten. (Except Beauty and the Beast. Go Beauty and the Beast.)

The reason for that little overview is that today we're going to talk about one of those stories the dude ripped off. It's called Riquet with the Tuft, and there are two wildly different versions. The first is by the lady, Catherine Bernard, and the second is by the dude, Charles Perrault.

Honestly, I prefer Perrault's version. But, like, I sort of feel bad about it? They have the same title, but they're basically completely different stories. And I read his first. And it's not that I actually like it, really, so much as that I feel it has potential? Which honestly is the case with a lot of my favorite fairy tales.

Anyway. We're gonna start with Perrault's version. And depending on how long that takes we might have a part two for Bernard's.

A prince is born. His name is Riquet, and they call him Riquet with the Tuft because he has one little tuft of hair. He's super ugly, but his fairy godmother says that he's going to be super smart, and gives him the ability to grant an equal amount of smartness to one other person in his life.

A princess is born in another kingdom. She's super pretty, but her fairy godmother says she's going to be super dumb. She gets the ability to make one other person in her life as hot as she is.

A second princess is born - the first princess' younger sister. And she also grows up smart and ugly, but not as smart or as ugly as Riquet. Don't know what the fairy godmother gave her. This story's not really about her.

Riquet does pretty well for himself, except for one thing. He's so ugly, no one wants to marry him.

Our first princess, on the other hand - she's struggling. She's so stupid that it doesn't even matter how pretty she is. Her younger sister is much better liked despite being really ugly, because at least she has a brain. Our princess is too stupid not to drop fine china on the floor. She's too stupid not to spill a glass of water all down her front. She's too stupid to remember her suitors' names. She's too stupid to maintain a simple conversation about the weather. It's...not great. She's just smart enough to be aware that she's astoundingly stupid.

Eventually she ands Riquet meet. Riquet has seen her portrait and fallen madly in love with her, which, like, shouldn't he maybe be smart enough not to randomly fall head over heels for total strangers just because they're hot?

Whatever. They meet. Princess is sad because no one likes her because she's stupid. Riquet offers her his fairy gift - offers to make her as smart as him. In exchange they'll get married, in one year.

So princess goes home, newly intelligent. Her poor little sister suffers for this; she isn't the hot one or the smart one now, and no one pays her any attention. Our girl's new smarts have changed her so much that she barely remembers her life before. She has dozens of suitors, one of whom she's particularly fond of, and seriously considering marrying. She's not totally sure, though, so she goes out into the woods to think about it. The same woods where she first met Riquet, a year ago now, which by this point she's almost totally forgotten about.

Riquet's excited that she's gotten there right on time for their wedding. At which point she has to tell him that she hasn't; she forgot all about that and it's just a coincidence that she's here today. And she's not sure about marrying him after all, because she was still stupid when she agreed to that - so stupid she didn't even realize how ugly he was. And surely he's smart enough to realize that he's far too ugly to marry, right?

(I'm totally not loving how her new brains for some reason made her shallow? Like, how is it smart to be judging people by their appearances? She and Riquet have both done it now.) 

Riquet asks if she has any concerns other than his physical appearance, and she says no, she thinks he's a great guy overall. So he reminds her of her ability to share beauty, she makes him hot, and they live happily ever after.

The part of the story that's always really stood out to me, despite the fact that it doesn't really fit in with the overall tone, is the little section right after they get married, where Perrault basically says that maybe she didn't actually make him hot, maybe it was just her love for him that made him seem hot to her. Which is a really sweet thought. It just doesn't make a ton of sense with the general shallowness displayed earlier in the story.

Since this is Perrault, we end the story with a moral. Two morals, in this case. First: What we love is always fair. Second: Love comes from unseen things, not just brains and beauty. These are actually both better than his usual morals, but, like, I'm still annoyed by the existence of the morals at all. Just seems, I don't know, self righteous or something. And again, not really consistent with the bulk of the story.

(Order The Shoemaker Prince to read a story inspired by this fairy tale, and 13 more!) 

The Frog Princess

(This month I am reposting relevant blogs in preparation for the release of my upcoming short story collection - every blog shared is about a fairy tale that inspired one of the stories.) 

So today we're going to talk about "The Frog Princess." This is a completely different story from "The Frog Prince"; literally all they have in common is an enchanted frog. The Frog Princess is found in a lot of different cultures, but I first encountered it as a Russian fairy tale, so that's the version we're going with today. Also, like. I just finished my post about "King Thrushbeard", and I feel like I've learned my lesson about the disappointments of actually rereading fairy tales instead of just going off my memory.  Today we are going to tell fairy tales the way they were meant to be told, the way they were told in the days of oral tradition: however the teller happens to remember them. (So don't anybody be coming in here and telling me I'm wrong, don't tell me I botched the details, don't tell me I just left out the entire second half; dude, I know. That's the point.)

We open with a scene sort of like the end of Robin Hood, where he shoots an arrow from his deathbed and tells the Merry Men to bury him wherever it lands? The king has his three sons shoot arrows, and they're supposed to find their brides wherever the arrow lands.

Now, how could that possibly go wrong?

Miraculously, no one is killed in this fun little bride search, and two of the three arrows actually happen to land somewhere in the general vicinity of an unmarried young woman. 

Unfortunately for our third prince, the only living thing anywhere near where his arrow lands is a frog. So he goes home and explains the situation to his dad, probably hoping for a reasonable response, like, "Oh, that sucks, try again," or maybe even, "You know what? Bridal acquisition via a literal shot in the dark was a stupid and dangerous idea. Forget it. Go meet a nice girl the normal way."

But our king is not a reasonable man, so what he tells the prince is "Well, I guess you're marrying a frog."

And then he says that whichever son has the most impressive wife gets to be the next king. Like, dude. Just come right out and say you hate prince number three.

First task to impress the king: make him a shirt.

The first two girls work hard to sew nice shirts. And prince number three, he goes home and tells the frog what's up, but he's not really expecting anything, because she's, you know, a frog. In the morning he has to go and not present his dad with a shirt, and before he leaves the frog gives him an acorn, and she's all like, "Look, I made you a shirt," and he just sort of says "Thanks, honey," and pats her slimy little head, because, I mean, what are you gonna do? She's a frog. They don't even wear shirts. Why should she know the difference between a shirt and an acorn?

"You have to open it," she says as he leaves.

"Sure, honey," he says, humoring her.

So he gets home. His dad looks over the other two shirts, makes his judgement, and then it's our dude's turn. He takes the little acorn cap off, and—there's fabric in there? Okay, weird. He pulls it out and it's a beautiful shirt made of the finest linen. Round one goes to our now very baffled third prince. Round two: bake some bread.

Now our prince isn't super quick on the uptake here. I'd think that the combination of talking frog and beautiful human-sized shirt folded into an acorn without even wrinkling would naturally lead to the conclusion that something magical is going on. But instead, he decides that the shirt must have been a fluke and, woe is him, there's no way his frog wife is ever gonna produce a loaf of bread. Frogs don't even eat bread. And how will she operate an oven?

The prince's new sisters-in-law are a little smarter, and have worked out the magic angle by now, so they go to spy on the frog. They watch her just sort of pour the dough into the oven through a hole on top, and go home to do the same thing. But, like, they don't have magic. So that backfires.

Frog presents prince with a second acorn. He pats her slimy little head and says "Thanks, honey," because he's sure she did her best. You can't fit a lot of bread in an acorn; bread isn't nearly as foldable as linen. But it's the thought that counts. And if he had to marry a frog, well, out of all the frogs in the world, he figures he's pretty lucky to have wound up with this one.

The first two princes show the king their very, very sad loaves of bread, and our prince is thinking, okay, maybe I have a shot. My loaf of bread might be incredibly tiny, but the shirt was good, and this other bread is pretty crappy. So he takes the cap off the acorn, and a beautiful, full-sized loaf of bread. They cut it up, and it tastes great. Round two goes to our prince. Third round: impress the king at a banquet.

Now our prince is thinking there's really no way his wife is going to perform well at a fancy party, because, again, she is literally a frog. She tells him to go ahead to the banquet, and she'll catch up later. He goes, thinking he's probably going to be stood up, because how is a frog going to get herself across town?

His brothers tease him about his frog wife and how she stood him up, and he just sits there and takes it because he knows his frog wife does her best, and at least she produced an edible loaf of bread. There's a commotion outside; a frog is riding up the driveway in a cardboard box pulled by mice. Which is, okay, all kinds of embarrassing. But the prince loves his frog wife, he's sure she's doing her best. And as she reaches the palace, she transforms into a beautiful woman. At which point the king declares our boy the winner of this bizarre little contest and the heir to the throne, and he and his frog wife, now de-frogged, live happily ever after.

-

Okay, fine, I can't just not read the original story. So just to let you know where I got it wrong: can't find evidence of that acorn detail, don't know where I got it. Possibly from a German variant called "Puddocky," in which the second task is to find a dog that can fit inside a walnut shell. And the entire last scene with the frog arriving is from the German version, not the Russian one, as well. Having just reread them both, I can see the story that exists in my memory is a very jumbled combination of the two.

Also, like, the frog doesn't do anything for herself in the Russian version? She has attendants the prince can't see who sew the shirt and bake the bread and everything, which is totally lame, and also cheating; the king said he'd leave the kingdom to the prince whose wife did the best job, not the one whose wife had the best servants. And there is a second half, in the Russian version, though the German version ends with the banquet. After that scene, in the Russian version, when the prince realizes his wife doesn't have to be a frog, he burns the skin, which in his defense, seems like the thing to do, based on folkloric precedence. But it doesn't pan out this time. Ends up being a more "East of the Sun West of the Moon" style screw-up, and he has to go on a quest to get her back. Which is actually kind of fun; you don't see a lot of gender reversal on the "I screwed up my SO's transformation spell and now I gotta fix it" quest. Anyway, he does that thing where he spares the lives of a bunch of animals and in return they help him out later. (I think the only time I've talked about that before is in "The Sea Hare".) Baba Yaga tells him our frog girl is now with Kaschey the Deathless, and how to kill him; it's one of those "you have to stab him in his heart, but instead of being in his body it's in an egg in a chest in a tower underwater or whatever" situations, like in "The Troll With No Heart In His Body". The animals help out with that, and then we live happily ever after, for real this time.

(Order The Shoemaker Prince to read a story inspired by this fairy tale, and 13 more!)

The Girl With No Heart in Her Body

Long, long ago, in the days when dreams walked the earth, there lived a princess who was born with no heart in her body. 

Naturally, this caused much consternation among the court. It was decided, after a week, that a ruby would be taken to fill the hole in her chest.

The child grew, as children often do, and she grew into a wicked, selfish thing, her stone heart unmoved by any diversion.

The days turned to months and the months turned to years, and it came time for the princess to be wed. Many men would love a heart of stone, but there were none that a stonehearted maiden could love.

And there came a prince with a quicksilver soul, who always heard yes when he should have heard no.

He contrived to be alone in the princess’ bedchamber one night. She watched his coming with curiosity, for her heart was hardened to fear.

“Princess,” he said, “What sits beneath your breast? For I have heard men call you heartless.”

“I have a heart beneath my breast,” she answered him, “and it shines brighter than yours, by far.”

“Princess,” he said, “I must see this heart. Surely you are not afraid to show it to me?”

“I am not afraid,” the princess said, and she lifted her nightshirt up to her neck, to show the heart her parents had made her.

The prince forgot his lust for greed. He snatched the ruby from her chest, and stowed it in a pouch around his neck, and took himself quickly away.

The princess stared down at the hole in her chest for several minutes. Slowly, she dropped the hem of her nightshirt, and slowly, she put herself back to bed. No one had stolen her heart before. She did not know what to do.

In the morning, the princess found herself tired, and full of an unnamed sorrow, and she did not rise from her bed. Her parents worried, for their daughter was often up with the sun. But she would not rise, and she would not speak.  She would not eat, and she would drink only a little water, and that only when her father begged, for every hour that passed took her heart farther from her body.

On the third day, the princess roused herself, and she went to her mother’s jewel box, and tipped it over onto the floor.

The gold and silver she rejected immediately. She lingered over the jewels, sapphires and emeralds and diamonds. But all of these were wrong. She found a garnet broach, and thought, perhaps, perhaps. She found a pair of ruby earrings, and hope flared. But all of these were wrong.

Her heart was a stone the size of her fist. The earrings were each the size of a teardrop, and the garnet no bigger than her eyes, dry, for a girl with no heart could never cry.

The queen was not pleased to find her daughter had gone through her things. The queen was, in fact, altogether quite displeased with her daughter, and the king soon followed suit. For the princess would do nothing but lie abed all day, and refused to attend court functions, and refused to see any suitors.

And days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months, and there came a dragon to lay waste at the north end of the kingdom.

“Perhaps,” said the king to the queen, “we will marry her to the man who kills the dragon.”

“Perhaps,” said the queen to the king, “but what man would have a wife who lies in bed all day?”

“Perhaps,” said the princess to herself, “the dragon has a jewel large enough to replace my heart.”

And so the princess resolved to save herself from this wasting illness that no one else could see. At first she thought she would ride out to meet the dragon, but her body grew weaker and weaker as long as her ruby heart was gone, for no one could live forever without a heart.

She thought on this for many days, and at last she went back to her mother’s room, and tipped over her jewel box again. She took from it as many things as she could carry, and then, giving up on her weak body, she filled the box again, and called a stable boy to carry it down, and tie it to the back of a large, reliable plow horse. She took herself slowly, next, down to the stables after the boy, and told him to tie her to the horse as well.

She pointed the horse’s large, fuzzy nose to the north, and let herself rest, secure in the stable boy’s knots. Her mother owned many, many fine pieces of jewelry, silver and gold and gems. If she was lucky, the princess thought, the dragon would smell the treasure, and come to meet her. She thought she could reason with a dragon; she still understood no fear.

The princess fell asleep on the back of the horse, and woke on the back of the horse, and drank a little from the skin of water the stable boy had filled for her. She slept again, and woke again, and so she passed many days, until the horse, plodding and reliable until now, suddenly reared up, dislodging princess and jewel box both, and galloped away.

She had reached the dragon’s lair.

The princess stood slowly. She was bruised from the fall, and tired, always tired now, ever since the theft of her heart.

“Hello?” she called. “Is there a dragon here?”

There was no answer.

“I have brought many small treasures,” she said, “which I would trade for one larger, if you are willing.”

A long, red snout emerged from the cave before her, and she stumbled hastily back, for the breath from its nostrils was hot and painful.

The dragon sniffed her. The dragon sniffed the treasure. The dragon said, in a low, rumbling voice, “You are dying, little princess. Why have you come to me?”

“I have come that I might not die,” the princess said. “My heart has been taken, and I would replace it from your hoard.”

“I do not hoard the hearts of girls,” the dragon said.

“I do not seek a heart of flesh,” the princess answered. At this, the dragon picked her up, long yellowed teeth clamped gently about her waist, and pulled her into the cave. After a moment, it went back outside for the jewel box.

“This treasure is not yours, I think.”

“It is my mother’s. She will miss it far more than she will miss me, for I am a heartless, unloving child.”

And the princess lifted her skirts up to her neck, and showed the dragon the hole in her chest. “Once I had a heart of stone,” she said, “but it was stolen by a prince with a quicksilver soul, and without it I think I shall die. Nothing in the box is big enough to do.”

She dropped her skirts and lifted her eyes, to see the shining jewels of the dragon’s hoard. Light from the mouth of the cave bounced from each bright surface to the next, but the princess knew no greed, only hope.

“Will you help me?” she asked the dragon.

The dragon knelt to rest her snout above the hole where a heart should lie, and the heat of her warmed the empty chest. “I will help you,” she said, and for the first time in her hard-hearted life, the princess knew joy.

“This evening I will find you a heart,” said the dragon. “For now, little princess, you must rest.” And she lifted the princess again, and laid her upon a sheep skin bed, and for the first time in her hard-hearted life, the princess knew peace.

When the princess woke, gems and jewels encircled her bed. “I have no red in my hoard,” the dragon said, “but perhaps one of these will do.”

They spent many days trying each jewel the dragon had, and when her hoard was finished, and a heart still not found, the dragon left the princess in her cave, and went out to discover new treasures. Days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months, and each jewel took its turn in the princess’ chest.

Diamond-hearted, she felt sharp, and harsh, and cruel. She said things she did not mean, and the dragon followed her with wide, wounded eyes. With silver in her chest, she felt an unending chill—all the blankets and skins the dragon had gathered could not keep out the cold, which settled deep in her bones.

With a giant pearl in place, she felt distant from all the world, and uncaring, too. She saw no problem until the dragon plucked it from her chest, and she returned to herself again. The opal made her giddy and prone to mood swings, wildly happy until she was suddenly sad. She kept it for several days, clinging to a joy she’d never known before, until the side effects became unbearable.

“Heart transplants are hard,” the dragon said mournfully.

The princess patted her consolingly on the snout; the heart of gold had her feeling especially kind.

One night, as the princess slept with a rose quartz heart, a man crept into the cave. The princess woke as soon as he set foot inside, for rose quartz made her restless.

It was the quicksilver prince who had stolen her heart, and he wore it in a pouch tied about his neck. She could feel it from across the cave, fresh, as if it had just been ripped from her chest.

He carried a sword and a shield, as if he had come here to harm the dragon, her dragon, as he had harmed her. She reached beneath her dress and removed her rose quartz heart, for she wished to be herself at this meeting.

The moon emerged from behind a cloud, casting its light on the princess.

“Princess,” said the prince. “I’ve come to save you.”

“To save me,” she repeated. “And what would you save me from?”

“From the dragon,” he said. “Your parents are worried sick.”

“Sick, are they? Sick as I was when you stole my heart? As I was when I languished for months without it?”

He smiled, eerie in the glittering light of the cave. “When the dragon is defeated,” he told her, “I will give you my heart in return, and we will be wed before you father’s throne.”

The prince stepped forward, the princess stepped back, and the dragon raised her great head. “Who is this?” she asked, and the prince stepped hastily back again.

“This is the quicksilver prince who stole my heart. He has offered me his own in exchange.”

“Oh?” said the dragon. “And how would you like it?”

“Charred,” answered the princess, from the bottom of her lost stone heart. And the dragon opened her great mouth and breathed.

When the quicksilver prince was a pile of ash, and the princess’s heart sat shining on top, she bent to pick it up, brushing off the soot. She lifted her dress and placed it inside her waiting chest.

The princess gathered her mother’s jewels and the prince’s steed, and she returned to her parents’ palace.

“I am sorry I took your jewels,” she said. “My heart has been not softened, but warmed, and I must go home to my friend. You need not send more princes after me.”

Her parents did not understand, but parents often do not, and what they wanted, in the end, was to see their daughter happy. So she went back to her dragon, and lived happily there until the end of her days.

 

You can purchase "The Girl With No Heart in Her Body" and 13 other stories in The Shoemaker Prince, available from Wax Heart Press on November 2!

The Enchanted Trunk

(This month I am reposting relevant blogs in preparation for the release of my upcoming short story collection - every blog shared is about a fairy tale that inspired one of the stories.)

So we’ve got a king. This king is the father of a rambunctious little boy. He’s also the owner of a magic flying trunk. You see where this is going, right? Insert prince in trunk, insert trunk in tree halfway across the world.

Now for all his rambunctiousness, our prince is apparently quite a sensible little boy, because the first thing he does, upon finding himself alone in a strange land, is climb down from the tree and go to learn a trade. He becomes a cobbler, which is convenient as he can continue to replace the fantastic red shoes he arrived in as his feet get larger.

In this new kingdom, there is also a king. He has a daughter, and because he sucks, she gets to spend her life locked up in a tower, Rapunzel-style.

But our boy has a flying suitcase, so visiting is not a problem. At least not until the king notices his daughter is a lot happier than someone in complete solitude should be, and tars up the windowsill, Cinderella-style.

(Whoever gave this man a fairy tale collection should be shot.)

Naturally, one of the distinctive red shoes gets stuck on the sill and left behind. And proving once and for all that he is a despicable sneak, the king announces that he’s had a change of heart and is going to let his daughter marry whoever was clever enough to get up into her tower.

Then, when our shoemaker prince comes forward to claim his footwear, the king preps to have him and the princess burned at the stake.

(Have I mentioned that he sucks?)

Well, you can probably guess what happens next. Deus ex luggage! The trunk flies in, grabs the kids, and whisks them away, back to the prince’s parents. After a decade or two, they’re pretty glad to see him, and everyone lives happily ever after.

14/10. Ridiculous. Magnificent.  Great work, Schönwerth. Excellent first impression.

(Order The Shoemaker Prince to read a story inspired by this fairy tale, and 13 more!)

The Frog King

(This month I am reposting relevant blogs in preparation for the release of my upcoming short story collection - every blog shared is about a fairy tale that inspires one of the stories.)

Morality Tale Type: What Not To Do

The first thing you need to know about this story is that this is not the title. Nope. The title is Iron Henry. Now, you may be asking, “Who is Henry?” And you may be thinking, oh, of course, the frog prince must be named Henry.

Nope. Dude doesn’t even show up until the last couple paragraphs. So hang tight; we’ll get there.

Actually, we’ll there pretty fast, because what is there to say that you don’t know already? Princess drops a ball in the water, frog goes to get it—wait. I’ve got this. There is stuff to say.

A ball? Either this girl is involved in the sort of extracurriculars most princesses avoid, or she’s pretty young. So, option 1: we’ve got a chick who plays softball or football or something , doesn’t know how to swim, and is generally creeped out by things that do. Or, option two: little girl drops her favorite toy in the well.

Given that her activity was described, specifically, as tossing the ball up and catching it, I’m putting my money on option two. Plus, I feel like a little girl would be less freaked out than a lady if a frog started talking.

On the other hand, I also feel like a little girl would be less grossed out by the frog than the lady would. Whatever. All I’m saying is, if the chick’s favorite activity is playing catch with herself, she takes a talking amphibian in stride, and she cries over a lost toy, maybe we shouldn’t expect her to be totally on top of the wise decisions.

This is, by the way, not about me rearranging the story so yet another charming prince is a pedophile, okay? We’ve got plenty of that out in the open—I’m not about to go looking for it. This is about attempting to explain the princess’s indisputably horrible behavior. Either way, we can’t win this one. Either she’s a little kid, or she’s a vicious murderer, so pick your poison, I guess.

Back to the story. Girl promises to hang with frog dude if he gets the ball, she runs off as soon as she has it back, and he shows up at the palace and tattles on her. The king, also unfazed by the talking frog, tells her she’d better keep her promises, with the scolding further cementing my child theory. Girl deals with frog until bedtime, and here’s where things get interesting again. (Oh my goodness, I was so wrong about having nothing to say.)

She’s afraid of the frog sleeping in her bed. Five years ago, I would have thought yeah, duh, he’s all wet and boggy and stuff, and what if she rolls over in her sleep and crushes him? Guys, I have done way too much research in college to be that innocent. Does the frog actually intend to just sleep in the bed? I don’t know for sure, but I’m betting he doesn’t.

His intentions here are really important, because the next thing that happens is that she picks him up and flings him at the wall. And he’s a frog, so, you know, splat.

If this was her defense against a particularly cringe-worthy come-on, I’m gonna go ahead and say she’s in the clear here. However, if the blatantly attempted homicide was just ‘cuz he was getting on her nerves, dude, what the heck? You’re the princess. The princess doesn’t kill people.

And in a move that rivals Sleeping Beauty level wtf, the impact jolts him right out of enchantment, or something, and suddenly instead of frog goop, we’ve got a hot prince proposing to our murder girl. I mean, if that’s really what you want in a relationship, man. Your funeral. Maybe literally.

(Sidenote: What were the terms of his spell? You can only be a prince again when you’ve pissed someone off so much she wants you dead? There is no kiss here, people. There is only murder. Someone remind me to come back to this when I do the Lindworm series—I’m just noticing some interesting parallels, although I don’t know what to make of them yet.)

Of course the girl agrees to marry the guy she just attacked in a fit of homicidal rage, because that’s how fairy tales work. And now we finally, finally get around to Iron Henry.

Dude’s a servant of the prince, and he’s been pretty bummed about the whole frog thing. Not even because of his paycheck. He had to get three iron bands put in around his heart, to keep it from breaking over the whole mess.

But now his prince is back and he’s getting married, and Henry’s so happy those bands just snap right off. So Iron Henry really loves his king, is what I’m getting here. I mean, we’re talking literal heart-breakage. He had to get preventative surgery.

Yikes.

If this was a popular story, in the here and now, you know they’d ship it hard. I can already see the fanart. And let me tell you, Iron Man frenching a frog? Not the prettiest picture.

Anyway.

Girls, don’t make promises you can’t keep, and remember, murder is not the answer. Guys, don’t marry someone who tried to kill you, and stay out of other people’s beds. And if anyone’s in the market for heart surgery, hit up Henry for some tips.

(Order The Shoemaker Prince to read a story inspired by this fairy tale, and 13 more!)