Not One Damsel in Distress

by Jane Yolen

  “Oh sir, you are clearly not from here,” said a young ribbon seller. “The queen is about to choose a new king.”

  “What has happened to the old one?” asked another of the lady sailors, careful to keep her voice low.

  “He has died,” said a button seller.

  “That is too bad,” said a third. “Did he have sons?”

  “None,” said an alewife. “So now, according to our custom, the queen will go to the roof of the palace and throw down the crown. And whoever’s head it lands on—​that person will be our new king.”

  “So that is why the hubbub,” said the fourth lady sailor.

  “Everyone trying to be the new king!” said the fifth.

  But the princess was at the end of the line of sailors and did not hear this explanation, and when a heavy object fell on her head, she only cried out, “Oh my!”

  Immediately at her side were a vizier and three great wise men of the kingdom, crying out, “Long live our king!” for they did not realize she was a woman.

  THE PRINCESS DID NOT TELL THEM. She was too wise for that. But when the funeral of the old king was over, a wedding was to take place between the princess-disguised-as-a-man and the old king’s widow.

  “This sailor is too young for the old queen,” said the vizier, noting the beardless chin of the sailor. “It will not be a good marriage. What children could come of it?”

  For a moment the princess was relieved. Only a moment.

  “Let us marry him to the queen’s daughter instead.”

  And the old queen, tired of ruling, thought it a fine idea. “But let it happen at once,” she said.

  So, the wedding was set for the very next day.

  But the disguised princess shook her head. “I am just newly come to this city. I have been traveling on the sea too many days. Let me grow used to your ways, and let me clothe my men in silken trousers and linen shirts, and let our hands grow less rough and our faces less red from the sun and the sea.”

  This was so wise that the vizier agreed.

  “And furthermore,” said the disguised princess, “let many sculptures of my head be made and set at every crossroads and every road leading to and from this great city, that my people will get to know me.”

  And that, too, seemed wise, and so the vizier agreed.

  “But anyone who stops and shows great emotion at the sculpture—​arrest them and bring them to me, for surely that will bode ill for this kingdom.”

  And that, too, seemed wise, and so, for a third time, the vizier agreed.

  NOW, IT HAPPENED that three people—​and only three—​stopped and gawked at the stone heads with such obvious emotion that they were arrested at once.

  The first was the true bridegroom, who had made his way from the island.

  The second was the merchant’s son, sent off by his angry father.

  And the third was the king who had been banished by the eleven lords.

  Each had recognized in the new king’s stone head the princess’s lovely face.

  On the very day of the wedding, the princess-in-disguise had these three brought to her, and she asked them to tell their stories. And when these were told, she turned first to the king.

  “O King, your kingdom was lost because these ladies were lost. Take them back and you will surely be welcomed.” She gestured to her ladies-in-waiting, no longer dressed as men—​and who, with soft hands and tanned cheeks, glowed with beauty.

  And to the merchant’s son she said, “And you who were driven from your home because of lost wealth, take back your ship, which carries a greater wealth than before, and surely your father will welcome you.”

  And then at last she turned to the prince. “It is you I have loved forever. It is you I will marry.”

  She called the vizier and the three wise men to her, saying, “I am not a man who stands before you but a woman and a princess.” She showed them the ring, which the prince had kept with him always. “Before I was ever a man, I was to be married to this man. Nothing shall part us now.”

  The vizier and the wise men were astonished. “But you are our king, what shall we do?”

  The princess had an answer. “Let the queen’s daughter be married to the king and sail off with him and the eleven ladies. Let the merchant’s son provide a handsome dowry.”

  “And who shall rule here?” the vizier asked.

  “Why, we shall,” said the princess, holding tight to the prince’s hand.

  So, the princess and the prince married and reigned with mercy and justice till the day they died.

  JAPAN

  The Samurai Maiden

  Sacrifice or hero—​this maiden has a choice

  ONCE, LONG AGO, in the island nation of Japan—​which sits like a string of pearls stretched out along the ocean—​a great samurai lord, Oribe Shima, was banished by the emperor for some small slight. He was sent to the wild and rocky islets called the Oki Islands, leaving behind his beloved small daughter, Tokoyo, in the care of her nurse.

  They were separated for many years, and Tokoyo felt the pain and humiliation as much as her father. So, one day, when she was almost all grown, she decided that she would try to find him.

  “And if I die trying,” she told her nurse, “then at least it will be an honorable death.” Which is what one would expect to hear from a great samurai lord’s child. She had inherited her father’s spirit, and she kept herself fit by diving with the local pearl divers—​women whose job it was to collect the pearl oysters from the bottom of the sea.

  Selling all that she had, Tokoyo set out for Akasaki, where, on days as bright as pearls, she could see the rocky coasts where her father had been abandoned.

  No one in Akasaki would take her across the sea to the Oki Islands, for the sea was hard to cross. Besides, there was a law forbidding anyone to visit those banished. To break that law meant death.

  But Tokoyo would not give up. She bought a small boat and some food. Then, in the dark of night, she set sail all alone.

  Fortune could have turned a back on Tokoyo but did not. A light breeze and a strong current carried her across the rough sea, and she fetched up—​half dead and chilled to the bone—​on the nearest of the rocky islets. She crawled out of the boat, dragged it ashore, then found a sheltered spot, where she slept until dawn.

  When she awoke she began her search and, before long, came upon a fisherman.

  “I am the daughter of Oribe Shima,” she said, “the great samurai lord. Do you know him?”

  “Alas—​I do not,” said the fisherman. “But do not ask me more. Such questions may bring you to your death. And me to mine.”

  Tokoyo bowed and went on. But so fearful was she of bringing death to someone else—​though she did not fear it for herself—​she did not dare ask further. Soon her food ran out and she was forced to beg from strangers. Still, she did it with grace and with the hope that she would find her father one day.

  Now, one evening she came to a shrine, which stood on the very edge of a rocky ledge.

  I will pray here to the Buddha, she thought, and ask him for help. For if I can ask no one else, at least Buddha will listen. But her prayers were so long and so anguished, she was drained when she finished, and she fell asleep right there at the shrine.

  In the middle of the night, she was awakened by the sound of anguished weeping and a clapping of hands. Sitting up, she looked around and saw by the moonlight a girl and a priest, both dressed in flowing white robes.

  It was the priest who was clapping and the girl who was sobbing. And when the priest stopped clapping, he took the girl by the shoulder and led her to the very edge of the precipice. It was quite clear that he was about to push her over the edge.

  Tokoyo leaped up, ran over to the pair, and grabbed the girl just before she went over the side of the cliff.

  The priest sighed. “I judge from your actions that you are a stranger to our island, for if you knew what we do here, you would not be so rash in your resc
ue.”

  “What can excuse such a thing?” Tokoyo asked, her arms around the sobbing girl.

  “This island is cursed by the evil serpent Yofune-Nushi. He lives below this cliff at the bottom of the sea. Every year he demands that we throw a girl not yet fifteen years old into the sea on this day. If we do not send him a sacrifice, he causes great storms at sea and many of our fishermen drown. So we give one to save all.”

  Tokoyo listened to what he had to say. Then she spoke with great deliberation. “Holy monk, let this child go, and I shall take her place. I am the daughter of the great samurai warrior chief Oribe Shima, exiled to these islands. I cannot find him. I cannot even ask about him. But I will do as he would have done. Since I cannot live a happy life, let me die a death of sacrifice. All I ask is that, if you can, you deliver this letter to my father, whose name you may not even be allowed to speak.”

  Tokoyo took the girl’s white robe and put it on. Then she knelt again at the shrine. “Buddha,” she pleaded, “give me my father’s courage,” for she did not plan to go quietly into the sea but intended to try to defeat the serpent god so that no more girls would have to be given into his wicked coils.

  Upon rising she took from her waistband the last thing of worth that she had taken from her house, a dagger that had belonged to her father and his fathers before him. Holding it in her teeth the way the pearl divers had taught her, she dived into the sea.

  Down and down and down Tokoyo dived, slicing cleanly through the water. When she reached the bottom, there in front of her was a cave all aglitter with shells.

  When Tokoyo peered into the cave, she thought she saw a man sitting a little ways inside. Grasping her father’s dagger she went in. But there was no man there. What she had mistakenly taken for one was a statue of the emperor who had exiled her father.

  Angrily she raised her knife. If she could not strike the emperor himself, she could at least deface his statue.

  Then suddenly she felt flooded with forgiveness.

  I will return evil with good, she thought, and clenched the knife once again in her teeth.

  She undid the sash of the white robe and tied the statue to her back. Then she headed with powerful strokes out of the cave.

  What should greet her at the cave’s entrance but a great, horrible snakelike creature with glowing scales and a hundred tiny feet. Its mouth was open and its teeth glittered as if coated with phosphorescence.

  She knew at once it was Yofune-Nushi.

  Without thinking about the danger, Tokoyo swam up close to his dreadful face and with one stroke of the knife put out his right eye.

  Yofune-Nushi twisted and turned in his agony, spinning Tokoyo and her heavy burden around. At last Tokoyo managed to pull the knife from the creature’s eye.

  Yofune-Nushi tried to get to the safety of his cave, though blinded in the one eye, and he could not find the way. So he turned, wallowing in front of the entrance, and Tokoyo struck him in the heart.

  Then, with her last bit of breath, she tied the end of the sash around the dead monster’s neck and towed him up to the surface of the ocean.

  Imagine the astonishment of the priest and the girl, who, standing on the cliffside and watching the great lashings of waves, saw Tokoyo rise up with a wooden statue tied to her back and the defeated evil serpent dragging behind. They rushed down to the beach and helped her to shore.

  Then, while the priest stood watch as the exhausted Tokoyo slept, the girl raced back to the village and told the news.

  What a festival began then! The emperor’s statue and the great head of the serpent god were brought into town. And Tokoyo herself was borne to the town center on a litter. There were seven days of singing and dancing and celebration. Word went to the emperor himself of Tokoyo’s amazing feat of courage and strength.

  The emperor, who had long suffered from a strange malady, suddenly found himself cured.

  “That is because your statue had been cursed and sunk in the sea,” said his advisors. “This brave girl has not only saved the village, she has saved the emperor’s life.”

  “And what is the name of this girl?” the emperor asked.

  “Tokoyo,” said the advisors.

  “Daughter of Oribe Shima,” they added.

  “Oribe Shima,” the emperor said, musing. “For his daughter’s brave deed, let him be released from banishment. Let him come home.”

  When it was discovered that Oribe Shima’s lands had been taken from him, and that Tokoyo had been forced to sell what little was left, all was returned—​and twice that, as well. So Tokoyo and her father were reunited. They found where her old nurse had gone and brought her back to live with them. And they dwelt happily together again for as long as they all lived.

  FRANCE

  Bradamante

  A great medieval knight in shining armor—​and she’s a woman!

  ONCE, IN THE TIME of the great emperor Charlemagne, there was a vassal king Agramant, who had many brave knights. Among the bravest was Bradamante, the knight of the white plume and shield. Bradamante was strong in arm, fierce in heart, and true to both king and crown. Bradamante’s story is told in many parts. Here are two of them.

  IN THE MIDST of a great battle, in which Bradamante was fighting with determination against a Moorish enemy named Rodomonte, the troops of Charlemagne were suddenly put to flight. But neither Bradamante nor Rodomonte noticed that the field had been cleared, for they traded blow upon blow without ceasing.

  Seeing that all the rest of the Christian army had fled, a Moorish prince named Ruggiero interrupted the fight, saying, “Let him of the two who worships Christ pause and hear what I have to say. The army of Charles is routed, and if he wishes to follow his leader, he has no time for delay.”

  Bradamante was thunderstruck by the loss. “Gladly I go, and I thank you, gentle prince, for your honor.” Then, wheeling about, horse and rider raced off the field.

  But this was not Rodomonte’s choice. He cried after the departing Bradamante, “Coward—​come back! I do not consent that you leave!”

  “That brave knight’s leaving was no cowardly act. But if you must pursue the fight,” said the prince, “I will take that brave knight’s part against you, though we be on the same side.” And he gave Rodomonte such a blow to the head that the man dropped both his sword and bridle.

  Then Ruggiero sat back, waiting for Rodomonte to recover his wits.

  Just then Bradamante, looking back, saw what was happening and returned. “I cannot let you fight my battle for me, O honorable prince.”

  But the battle was, in fact, over. Rodomonte, recovering from his confusion, picked up his sword, remounted his horse, and galloped out of sight.

  And so Bradamante and Ruggiero, who should have been enemies, became friends and rode from the battlefield together.

  Ruggiero spoke of how his mother, a daughter of the house of Hector of Troy, had been driven from her home in Messina and had died giving him birth. “And so I was brought up and trained to arms by a sage sorcerer.”

  “I am of the race of Clermont,” Bradamante said. “Perhaps you have heard of my brother, Rinaldo.”

  “I have heard of him, indeed,” said the prince. “But not that he had a brother.”

  “He has no brother, indeed,” said Bradamante. “For I am his sister.” She took off her helmet, and she was so lovely to look at, the prince was transported with delight.

  As they rode along, they were so intent on their conversation that neither of them paid attention to what was going on around them. A party of Moors—​waiting in the woods to intercept any fleeing Christians—​broke from its ambush.

  “After them!” shouted one soldier, who rushed upon the pair and gave Bradamante such a blow upon her uncasqued head that blood flowed freely, like red tresses, down into her hair.

  But Bradamante was not deterred by the blow. She put her helmet back on, and with Ruggiero by her side, she chased the ambushers back into the forest.

  During t
he chase Bradamante and the Moorish prince became separated, and they, who had so recently found each other, were lost.

  LONG DID BRADAMANTE LOOK for the handsome prince Ruggiero, but it was as if he had disappeared from the face of the earth. She left Charlemagne’s army and the vassalage of King Agramant in order to continue her search.

  And then one day she found herself in a broad meadow surrounded by the steepest of mountain ravines. In the middle of the meadow was a stone fountain. Ancient trees overshadowed the fountain, and Bradamante—​hot and tired from traveling so far and so high—​decided that it was the perfect Eden in which to rest.

  When she got nearer the place, she saw that there was a knight sitting with his back against one of the trees, and he seemed in the deepest of griefs. So she dismounted and went over to him, asking, “What ails you, pale knight?”

  “Alas, my lord,” he said, for in her battle dress he mistook her for a man, “the young woman I am to marry has been ripped from me by a demon enchanter on a winged horse. Though I have followed them as fast as I could, over the rocks and through the ravines till I killed the horse under me, I can now only lie here, awaiting my own death, for I can go no farther.”

  “Come, come, surely more can be done,” said Bradamante, for though she sorrowed for the fate of the maiden torn from him, she could not abide one who would so easily will himself to die.

  “And more I have done,” said the knight, sighing. “I have sent already two good men after her, braver and stronger by far than I—​the king of Sericane, Gradassso, and the Moorish prince Ruggiero. But the wicked enchanter has captured them both and taken them to his castle, high in these mountains. It is a place that no mortal man can break into.”

  At the mention of Ruggiero’s name, Bradamante thought her heart would burst through her armor, but she did not let it show. Instead she said, “Do not despair, sir knight. This day may end more happily than you think. Show me to this impregnable castle. What one cannot do, perhaps another can.”