“Oh, won’t you wish for it now?” said the queen.
“No, dearest. She may want something else more when she grows up. And besides, her hair may grow by itself.”
But it never did. Princess Melisande grew up as beautiful as the sun and as good as gold, but never a hair grew on that little head of hers. The queen sewed her little caps of green silk, and the princess’s pink and white face looked out of these like a flower peeping out of its bud. And every day as she grew older she grew dearer, and as she grew dearer she grew better, and as she grew more good she grew more beautiful.
Now, when she was grown up the queen said to the king:
“My love, our dear daughter is old enough to know what she wants. Let her have the wish.”
So the king unlocked his gold safe with the seven diamond-handled keys that hung at his girdle, and took out the wish and gave it to his daughter.
Then the queen said:
“Dearest, for my sake, wish what I tell you.”
“Why, of course I will,” said Melisande. The queen whispered in her ear, and Melisande nodded. Then she said, aloud:
“I wish I had golden hair a yard long, and that it would grow an inch every day, and grow twice as fast every time it was cut, and—”
“Stop,” cried the king. And the wish went off, and the next moment the princess stood smiling at him through a shower of golden hair.
“Oh, how lovely,” said the queen. “What a pity you interrupted her, dear. What’s the matter?”
“You’ll know soon enough,” said the king. “Come, let’s be happy while we may. Give me a kiss, little Melisande, and then go to nurse and ask her to teach you how to comb your hair.”
“I know,” said Melisande, “I’ve often combed mother’s.”
“Your mother has beautiful hair,” said the king, “but I fancy you will find your own less easy to manage.”
And, indeed, it was so. The princess’s hair began by being a yard long, and it grew an inch every night. If you know anything at all about the simplest sums you will see that in about five weeks her hair was about two yards long. This is a very inconvenient length. It trails on the floor and sweeps up all the dust. And the princess’s hair was growing an inch every night. When it was three yards long the princess could not bear it any longer – it was so heavy and so hot – so she cut it all off, and then for a few hours she was comfortable. But the hair went on growing, and now it grew twice as fast as before, so that in thirty-six days it was as long as ever. The poor princess cried with tiredness. When she couldn’t bear it anymore she cut her hair and was comfortable for a very little time. For the hair now grew four times as fast as at first, and in eighteen days it was as long as before, and she had to have it cut and so on, growing twice as fast after each cutting, till the princess would go to bed at night with her hair clipped short, and wake up in the morning with yards and yards and yards of golden hair flowing all about the room, so that she could not move without pulling her own hair, and nurse had to come and cut the hair off before she could get out of bed.
“I wish I was bald again,” sighed poor Melisande.
And still the hair grew and grew. Then the king said:
“I shall write to my fairy godmother and see if something cannot be done.”
So he wrote and sent the letter by a skylark, and by return of bird came this answer:
Why not advertise for a prince? Offer the usual reward.
So the king sent out his heralds all over the world to proclaim that any respectable prince with proper references should marry the Princess Melisande if he could stop her hair growing.
Then from far and near came trains of princes anxious to try their luck, and they brought all sorts of nasty things with them in bottles and round wooden boxes. The princess tried all the remedies, but she did not like any of them, and she did not like any of the princes, so in her heart she was rather glad that none of them made the least difference to her hair.
The princess had to sleep in the great throne room now, because no other room was big enough to hold her and her hair. When she woke in the morning the long high room would be quite full of her golden hair, packed tight and thick like wool in a barn. And every night when she had had the hair cut close to her head she would sit in her green silk gown by the window and cry, and kiss the little green caps she used to wear, and wish herself bald again. It was as she sat crying there on Midsummer Eve that she first saw Prince Florizel.
He was walking in the garden in the moonlight, and he looked up and she looked down, and for the first time Melisande, looking on a prince, wished that he might have the power to stop her hair from growing. As for the prince, he wished many things, and the first was granted him. For he said, “You are Melisande?”
“And you are Florizel?”
“There are many roses round your window,” said he to her, “and none down here.”
She threw him one of three white roses she held in her hand. Then he said:
“If I can do what your father asks, will you marry me?”
“My father has promised that I shall,” said Melisande, playing with the white roses in her hand.
“Dear princess,” said he, “your father’s promise is nothing to me. I want yours. Will you give it to me?”
“Yes,” said she, and gave him the second rose.
“I want your hand.”
“Yes,” she said.
“And your heart with it.”
“Yes,” said the princess, and gave him the third rose.
“Then,” said he, “stay by your window and I will stay down here in the garden and watch. And when your hair has grown to the filling of your room call to me, and then do as I tell you.”
“I will,” said the princess.
So at dewy sunrise the prince, lying on the turf beside the sundial, heard her voice. “Florizel! Florizel! My hair has grown so long that it is pushing me out of the window.”
“Get out on to the windowsill,” said he, “and twist your hair three times round the great iron hook that is there.”
And she did.
Then the prince climbed up the rose bush with his naked sword in his teeth, and he took the princess’s hair in his hand about a yard from her head and said:
“Jump!”
The princess jumped, and screamed, for there she was hanging from the hook by a yard and a half of her bright hair. The prince tightened his grasp of the hair and drew his sword across it.
Then he let her down gently by her hair till her feet were on the grass, and jumped down after her.
They stayed talking in the garden till all the shadows had crept under their proper trees and the sundial said it was breakfast time.
Then they went in to breakfast, and all the court crowded round to wonder and admire. For the princess’s hair had not grown.
“How did you do it?” asked the king, shaking Florizel warmly by the hand.
“The simplest thing in the world,” said Florizel, modestly. “You have always cut the hair off the princess. I just cut the princess off the hair.”
“You are a young man of sound judgment,” said the king, embracing him.
The princess kissed her prince a hundred times, and the very next day they were married. Everyone remarked on the beauty of the bride, and it was noticed that her hair was quite short – only five feet five and a quarter inches long – just down to her pretty ankles.
Rosanella
By Comte de Caylus
READING TIME: 10 MINUTES
Inconstant, fickle, faithless – these are all words to describe someone who cannot stay true to one love, but is always finding a new person to fall in love with. But what happens when an incurably fickle prince meets a princess no one can resist?
Everybody knows that though the fairies live hundreds of years they do sometimes die, and especially as they pass one day in every week under the form of some animal, when of course they are liable to accident. It was in this way that death once overtook the q
ueen of the fairies, and it became necessary to elect a new sovereign. After much discussion, it appeared that the choice lay between two fairies, one called Surcantine and the other Paridamie, and their claims were so equal that it was impossible to choose one over the other.
In the end, the fairy court decided that whichever of the two could show to the world the greatest wonder should be queen, but it was to be a special kind of wonder, no moving of mountains or any such common fairy tricks would do. Surcantine, therefore, decided that she would bring up a prince whom nothing could make faithful and constant to one love. While Paridamie decided to display to admiring mortals a princess so charming that no one could see her without falling in love with her. They were allowed to take their own time, and meanwhile the four oldest fairies were to attend to the affairs of the kingdom.
Now Paridamie had for a long time been very friendly with King Bardondon, who was a most noble monarch, and whose court was the model of what a court should be. His queen, Balanice, was also charming – indeed it is rare to find a husband and wife so perfectly of one mind about everything.
They had one little daughter, whom they had named ‘Rosanella,’ because she had a pink rose birthmark upon her throat.
On the the night following the assembly of fairies, Queen Balanice woke up with a shriek, and when her maids of honour ran to see what was the matter, they found she had had a frightful dream.
“I thought,” said she, “that my little daughter had changed into a bouquet of roses, and that as I held it in my hand a bird swooped down suddenly and snatched it from me and carried it away.”
“Let someone run and see that all is well with the princess,” she added.
So they ran, but they found the cradle empty, and though they sought high and low, not a trace of Rosanella could they find. The queen was beside herself with grief, and so, indeed, was the king, only being a man he did not say quite so much about his feelings.
He presently suggested to Balanice that they should spend a few days at one of their palaces in the country, and she agreed, since in her sorrow she no longer enjoyed the pleasures of town. One summer evening, as they sat together on a shady lawn shaped like a star, from which radiated twelve splendid avenues of trees, the queen looked round and saw a charming peasant girl approaching by each path, and that each girl carried something in a basket with the greatest care. As each girl drew near she laid her basket at Balanice’s feet, saying:
“Charming queen, may this be some slight comfort to you in your unhappiness!”
The queen hastily opened the baskets, and found in each a lovely baby girl, about the same age as the little princess for whom she sorrowed so deeply. At first the sight of them renewed her grief, but presently their charms so gained upon her that she forgot her sadness in looking after the babies, providing them with maids, cradle-rockers, and ladies-in-waiting, and in sending hither and thither for swings and dolls and tops.
Oddly enough, every baby had upon its throat a tiny pink rose. The queen found it so difficult to decide on suitable names for all of them, that until she could settle the matter she chose a special colour for each girl, pink for one, purple for another and, so that when they were all together they looked like nothing so much as a nosegay of flowers. As they grew older it became clear that though they were all remarkably intelligent, they differed one from another in character, so much so that they gradually ceased to be known as ‘Ruby,’ or ‘Primrose,’ or whatever might have been their colour, and the queen instead would say: “Where is my Sweet?” or “my Kind,” or “my Happy.”
Of course, with all these charms they had lovers by the dozen. Not only in their own court, but princes from afar, who were constantly arriving, attracted by the reports which were spread abroad; but these lovely girls, the first maids of honour, were as sensible as they were beautiful, and favoured no one.
But let us return to Surcantine. She had fixed upon the son of a king who was cousin to Bardondon, to bring up as her fickle prince. She had before, at his christening, given him all the graces of mind and body that a prince could possibly require, but now she redoubled her efforts, and spared no pains in adding every imaginable charm and fascination. So that whether he happened to be cross or amiable, splendidly or simply attired, serious or frivolous, he was always perfectly irresistible! In truth, he was a charming young fellow, since the Fairy had given him the best heart in the world as well as the best head, and had left nothing to be desired except faithfulness. For it cannot be denied that Prince Mirliflor was a desperate flirt, and as fickle as the wind. By the time he arrived at his eighteenth birthday there was not a heart left for him to conquer in his father’s kingdom – they were all his own, and he was tired of everyone! Things were in this state when he was invited to visit the court of his father’s cousin, King Bardondon.
Imagine his feelings when he arrived and was presented at once to twelve of the loveliest creatures in the world, and they all liked him as much as he liked each one of them, so that things came to such a pass that he was never happy a single instant without them. For could he not whisper soft speeches to Sweet, and laugh with Joy, while he looked at Beauty? And in his more serious moments what could be pleasanter than to talk to Thoughtful upon some shady lawn, while he held the hand of Loving in his own, and all the others lingered near? For the first time in his life he really loved, though the object of his devotion was not one person, but twelve, to whom he was equally attached, and even Surcantine was deceived into thinking that this was indeed the height of inconstancy. But Paridamie said not a word. One day the queen gave a large garden party, and just as the guests were all assembled, and Prince Mirliflor was as usual dividing his attentions between the twelve beauties, a humming of bees was heard. The Rose-maidens, fearing their stings, uttered little shrieks, and fled to a distance from the rest of the company. Immediately, to the horror of all who were looking on, the bees pursued them, and, growing suddenly to an enormous size, pounced each upon a maiden and carried her off into the air, and in an instant they were all lost to view. This amazing occurrence plunged the whole court into the deepest sadness, and Prince Mirliflor, after giving way to the most violent grief at first, fell gradually into a state of such deep dejection that it was feared if nothing could rouse him he would certainly die.
Surcantine came in all haste to see what she could do for her darling, but he rejected with scorn all the portraits of lovely princesses which she offered him for his collection. In short, it was evident that he was in a bad way, and the Fairy was at her wits, end. One day, as he wandered about absorbed in melancholy reflections, he heard sudden shouts and exclamations of amazement, and if he had taken the trouble to look up he could not have helped being as astonished as everyone else, for through the air a chariot of crystal was slowly approaching which glittered in the sunshine.
Six lovely maidens with shining wings drew it by rose-coloured ribbons, while others, equally beautiful, were holding long garlands of roses crossed above it, so as to form a canopy. In it sat the Fairy Paridamie, and by her side a princess whose beauty positively dazzled all who saw her.
At the foot of the great staircase they descended, and proceeded to the queen’s apartments, though everyone had run together to see this marvel, till it was quite difficult to make a way through the crowd, and exclamations of wonder rose on all sides at the loveliness of the strange princess. “Great queen,” said Paridamie, “permit me to restore to you your daughter Rosanella, whom I stole out of her cradle.”
After the first transports of joy were over the queen said to Paridamie, “But my twelve lovely ones, are they lost to me for ever? Shall I never see them again?”
But Paridamie only said:
“Very soon you will cease to miss them!” in a tone that evidently meant ‘Don’t ask me any more questions., And then mounting again into her chariot she swiftly disappeared.
The news of his beautiful cousin’s arrival was soon carried to the prince, but he had hardly the heart to go an
d see her. However, it became absolutely necessary that he should pay his respects, and he had scarcely been five minutes in her presence before it seemed to him that she combined in her own charming person all the gifts and graces which had so attracted him in the twelve Rose-maidens whose loss he had so truly mourned.
And after all it is really more satisfactory to be in love with one person at a time. So it came to pass that before he knew where he was he was entreating his lovely cousin to marry him, and the moment the words had left his lips, Paridamie appeared, smiling and triumphant, in the chariot of the queen of the fairies, for by that time they had all heard of her success, and declared her to have earned the kingdom. She had to give a full account of how she had stolen Rosanella from her cradle, and divided her character into twelve parts, that each might charm Prince Mirliflor, and when once more united might cure him of his inconstancy once and for ever.
And as one more proof of the fascination of the whole Rosanella, I may tell you that even the defeated Surcantine sent her a wedding gift, and was present at the ceremony which took place as soon as the guests could arrive. Prince Mirliflor was faithful only to his adored Rosanella for the rest of his life. And indeed who would not have been in his place?
As for Rosanella, she loved him as much as all the twelve beauties put together, so they reigned in peace and happiness to the end of their long lives.
The Fairy Blackstick
From The Rose and the Ring
By William Makepeace Thackeray
READING TIME: 5 MINUTES
Between the kingdoms of Paflagonia and Crim Tartary, there lived a mysterious personage, who was known in those countries as the Fairy Blackstick, from the ebony wand which she carried, on which she rode to the moon sometimes, and with which she performed her wonders.
When she was young, and had been first taught the art of conjuring by the sorcerer, her father, she was always practising her skill, whizzing about from one The Fairy Blackstick kingdom to another upon her black stick, and conferring her fairy favours upon this prince or that. She had scores of royal godchildren, turned numberless wicked people into beasts, birds, millstones, clocks, pumps, boot jacks, umbrellas, or other absurd shapes, and, in a word, was one of the most active of the whole College of Fairies.
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