The Snippy Little Princess: A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, in a land far away, there was a rather average looking princess named Emily. She had grown up in a fine castle atop a rolling hill and her father, the King, was a king of great warmth and knowledge and was very beloved by all of his people. The Queen was also quite popular for she was very beautiful with flowing dark hair that rippled in sumptuous curls down her back. Usually the King let the Queen have her way for he was very much in love with her dancing eyes and delicate touch and the Queen was quite spoiled for having her way so very much. But the Queen also loved him deeply so they were very, very happy.

The one person the queen cared for least just happened to be her own daughter. Unfortunately, for Emily, the Queen was very concerned about remaining young, beautiful and slender. When she realized she was with child the Queen had been so upset she took to her bedchamber for four whole days. Nothing could rouse her from her bed. The King sent for every doctor from every corner of his vast kingdom but none of them could bring the warm blush back to the Queen’s cheeks. It wasn’t until the King himself threw himself next to her bed, pledging love for her beyond anyone else and that he vowed to throw himself off the tallest castle tower if she did not come back to him did she rouse herself from the bed and happiness reigned again in the kingdom.

Once the baby was born the King and Queen were eager to see their golden child, excited to be parents. However, when they saw it was a girl, their happiness dimmed. Oh, they loved their daughter with her soft brown hair and deep velvet eyes. But the entire kingdom was hoping for a son, for an heir. The young girl was named Emily Kate and handed off to a nurse while her parents took celebratory trips through their lands.

Emily Kate grew up a lonely child, eager for company. However, being the King’s only daughter had caused her to adopt a rather imposing personality. She was exacting and literal, quite sure that she, above all others, was correct. Governesses and tutors tried to explain things to her, to bring her down to earth for no matter how beloved the King and Queen were, they were always unfailingly kind and polite. Their daughter, however, became a terror to those who knew her. She corrected her tutors, lectured her governesses, she was rough on her riding ponies, and she was very imperious with all the other children brought to the castle to play with her. She insisted on playing only games she wanted to play and she was very cruel to children who disagreed. Pretty soon most of the nobles would not send their children to play with the little princess and so she grew up very lonely. Her parents were often away seeing the people in their kingdom so they were not able to see a lot of their daughter, though they loved her very much and made sure she was well taken care of while they were gone.

Princess Emily Kate grew up into a pretty young lady though her eyes never lost the hard and imperious look from childhood. A few princes came to call, eager to be accepted into the beloved King’s family. However, the princess was not so welcoming to them. The King and Queen had fallen in love and were determined to let Princess Emily Kate make her own decision about marriage. They became dismayed when prince after prince failed to win her hand. One prince was turned down because he played the flute and Princess Emily only liked the harp. Another prince was turned down because he rode a white horse and Princess Emily only liked brown horses. The King and Queen didn’t know what to do with their willful daughter.

Then one day Princess Emily purposed to walk down to the seashore, a great distance from the castle. Accompanied by a weary lady-in-waiting, the princess galloped faster and faster down the hill and through the fields towards the sandy shore in the distance. In an instant her horse neighed and bucked and she was thrown. Luckily, she landed in a vast field of heather and was unhurt though shaken. As she looked up and caught her breath she saw the dusty boots of a farmer standing before her. She gazed upwards, the words of rebuke for having dusty boots in her presence when she saw his shining blue eyes.

“Hello,” he said, “what happened?”

“I fell off my horse,” she grumbled, trying to rise.

“You may have been hurt,” he said and knelt down to caution her.

“I’m fine,” she insisted. Though when she arose a pain shot through her ankle. She crumpled against the farmer’s strong hands.

“You’re hurt, come here,” he said as he swung her in his arms. The lady-in-waiting rode up, shocked to see the princess in the arms of a common farmer. She slid from her horse and followed them, holding her embroidered skirts high above the plowed field.

The farmer took Princess Emily inside a tiny shack, smaller than her closet and laid her on a small couch fashioned from a wood plank, bales of hay and a straw filled cushion. He gently removed her satin shoe and felt her ankle. Warmth spread through her as she felt his hands and for the first time she felt relaxed. He took sprigs of flowers and herbs she did not know and made a bandage, tucking the blossoms inside.

“This will help with swelling,” he said.

“I should see a doctor,” she decided, and then turning towards her lady-in-waiting, “Send for Dr. Butler immediately.”

“Don’t,” said the farmer, “you don’t need that.” His firm voice stopped her and she indicated that the lady-in-waiting should not leave.

“How do you know this?” she asked.

“I just do,” he said.

Something bubbled up in the princess as she looked around the tiny shack. It was barely six feet by eight feet. A small cabinet holding a few cracked plates hung above a washbasin and a counter. A small fireplace with a soot stained pot was to the left of the cabinet. A table with two chairs was in front of it. Nothing else was in the shack but the couch upon which she laid and which was quite different than the down filled beds and silk sheets she was used to. Yet, somehow, she felt more at home in this dusty little shack than she did in the beautiful castle.

Within a short period of time she felt better and he carried her back to her horse, where he placed her atop and smiled at her before sending her back.

For days she rode the same trail, hoping to see him but if he was working the fields, he did so far from where she had been before.

She wandered the castle, eschewing the meats and vegetables laid out on the golden dinner plates and ignored the rich red wine in the crystal goblets. She started wearing quite plain clothes with nary a golden thread or a bit of lace. She stared out the window for hours, gazing down towards the seashore.

When the King and Queen returned from their trip they were aghast at the change their daughter had gone through. No longer vibrant but overburdened, she was a ghost at their table. She grilled the cook about what the cook ate at home and insisted on being served gruel in the morning, a slice of fried meat and coarse bread at lunch and some fish head broth at dinner. Her parents begged her to eat the beef, the roasted potatoes, the fresh tomatoes but she refused.

One fine morning, as the sun peeked in through the light gossamer curtains, the princess approached her parents at the breakfast table. She wore, as usual, a simple dress of coarse brown linen, her feet clad in unpolished shoes. Her mother dropped her china cup when the Princess announced that she had found the man she was to marry.

Expecting a foreign prince or at least a well-connected man of aristocracy, the King was furious she announced that she would marry instead a simple farmer who lived below the hill on the ridge overlooking the ocean. He threw his glass, his plate and tore his napkin. The Queen sobbed into her own lace trimmed napkin and begged her daughter to reconsider. The King vowed that the farmer would be put in jail for seducing his daughter. The daughter swore she would never see her parents again and ran from the castle, the King’s thundering voice following her.

She ran down the hill as fast as she could, not caring as her dress, her only possession, was torn by the thick brambles. She found the plowed field but didn’t find him standing outside. She traversed the field carefully and trembled slightly as she knocked on the door.

He opened it and his eyes widened in surprise. He opened his mouth to speak and was astounded when she walked in, uninvited. But, since she was a princess, he thought he shouldn’t tell her not to do so.

“I think we should marry at your church, not at the castle’s chapel,” she said, turning to face him.

“Marry?” he asked.

“Yes. Of course. Don’t you want to marry me?” she demanded in the haughty voice for which she was famous.

“Um…I…well, I don’t really…”

She interrupted him, “Okay, that’s settled,” she turned to look around, “So what have you to eat?”

He could not speak and instead pointed at the bowl of stew on the table. It was made with vegetables from his garden, with the results of his skillful hunting and the aroma made his mouth water as he had just started on it.

“Oh, you can’t eat that,” she said, tipping the bowl’s contents out the window, “I don’t really know how to cook, but that can’t be good for you. That smelled like something my parents would’ve made me eat.”

He glanced around, half expecting to see the venerable old King and his lovely Queen, but they were quite alone in the room. He watched as Princess Emily pulled out a bag of cornmeal and some dried grass seed. She poured a cupful of each into a earthen bowl and filled it with a bit of the cream he had saved as a late morning treat.

“There,” she said, “we’ll let that sit for a few days and then it will be good enough to eat.”

“But that’s the cornmeal for the chickens who lay my eggs. And the grass seed is for the birds that flutter in the back flower garden,” he protested.

“Then it’s good enough for us,” she declared, while she stripped the yellow curtains off the windows.

He didn’t know what else to do. After all, she was a princess so she must know better than him, a simple farmer. He did the only thing he knew to do: he went back to working in the field.

Later that evening, after shushing his requests for food, she combed his hair with a comb dipped in the well water and they walked to the church by his home. Without even realizing what was happening, they were married.

That night she snuggled next to him on the straw filled mattress, whispering the things she had learned from an indiscreet downstairs maid when she had been eavesdropping as a child. He was amazed but did as she instructed. Pretty soon he realized that he would do anything possible to continue to do that again and again.

The King and Queen sent emissaries to the little shack. They sent bundles of silk dresses, which she used to make rooms in the little house, preferring to wear the same coarse dress she had arrived in. They sent crates of food which she threw out the back to the animals, though it made the poor farmer very sad. She refused to talk to her parents, stating that they didn’t understand her and never had.

Even when she gave birth to their first child she refused to see them. The farmer loved his little son and called him Daniel. He taught him to fish, to ride a horse, to feed the chickens. Princess Emily, however, spent most of her time writing on parchment, sending her notes far and wide throughout the kingdom. The farmer knew to be on his best behavior when her notes were returned with dissenting opinions. On a few nights he and Daniel spent the night in the chicken coop where it was not only warmer but quieter.

A second son arrived. And then a third. The farmer suggested that since she was good with advice and made many coins with it they should expand their little home. The fury that erupted was not something he wished to see again and so he simply made another straw filled mattress for the baby.

Sometimes he thought he simply didn’t understand much. Much of what his wife did seemed odd to him. She wouldn’t let him eat anything before soaking it in the whey from the cheese she made. Even fresh vegetables and fruits he picked for them were soaked before they were eaten. He had brought home rice once and she soaked it in lye water for three weeks before he could eat it. Many a day in the field he had to stop for a moment because he was weak from hunger. But no matter what he said she clung to her cooking.

Then one day a letter came from the King. This time it was addressed to the farmer and was delivered in secret by an emissary from the King. The farmer was poor and illiterate so he took it to the priest to read. The priest read the letter to him and the farmer was amazed because the King had heard of their troubles and offered them lodging in the castle and acceptance into the family for the boys were still the grandsons of kings even if they were the sons of a simple farmer.

The farmer walked home with a heavy heart. He knew that Emily would not want to go back to the castle. He saw the dim light of the castle in the distance and thought of the foods and warmth, of the security and knew he could no longer deny that chance to his three boys, as he watched them grow smaller and more slender each day.

Just as he made up his mind a small elf popped up from behind a tree and greeted him with a low bow.

“Hello, kind sir, I see you are making a great wish,” twittered the spry elf.

“How did you know?” asked the farmer.

“Because I am a heart elf. I can see your heart’s desire. I know all that’s happening inside you. I only reveal myself when someone is in true need.”

“Yes, I am in need. I don’t know what to do,” lamented the farmer with tears in his eyes.

The elf pulled out a small vial filled with a light purple liquid. His eyes twinkled as he handed it to the farmer with the greatest of care.

“This is from the Fountain of Forgetfulness. Two drops and whoever drinks it will forget who they are. It is usually used by those who are desperately unhappy and wish to start a new life.”

“But I can’t drink that,” said the farmer, “I don’t want to forget my boys.”

“Ah, I know! But you can give it to your wife. And if she forgets who she is she will forget who you are!”

A bright, gleaming light of understanding lit up the farmer’s face and he realized he had the means now of escaping his wife. He grabbed the vial and ran home.

That night, after an unsatisfying meal of grubworms and creamed dirt, he dropped four drops of the potion in the whey his wife drank at night. He wanted to be sure there was no mistake. He watched as her eyes went fuzzy and forgetfulness spread across her features.

“Who are you?” she asked.

His heart leapt. “No one,” he answered, “my boys and I were travelling and you gave us food for our long journey.”

“Oh, that was very nice of me,” said Emily.

“Thank you,” he said as he jumped up, scooped up his sons and headed for the door, their sleeping bodies pressed warm in his arms.

“I’m…I’m…I’m…well, I’m not sure,” she stammered.

“It’s okay, you were lovely. See you later!” he said as he ran out the door and up to the castle.

The King and Queen were very sad to hear about what had happened to their daughter but they could not deny their love for the three beautiful boys who became robust once they had the delicious food of the royal cook. The farmer charmed the King and Queen with his earnest ways and they found a young lady of good birth to marry him and be the mother to his dear boys.

Princess Emily stayed in the shack for the rest of her life. She grew stooped and skinny, a bag of bones in a torn dress. She rented the land around her shack and grew rich though no one in the kingdom could remember her spending a penny of it. Once in a while she walked to town, yelling at people along the way, proclaiming that she knew what she was talking about. Townspeople knew the tragic story and simply laughed while her back was turned. She bought rat tails to chew on and told everyone it was better to sleep outside in winter.

After one particularly long winter, she was found frozen, covered in straw in the little shack. Though she was buried quietly in the royal graveyard by her grieving parents, townspeople still do not go near the shack. They say that even now the smell of rotting milk and burned goat meat still lingers in the air.

And the farmer, his new wife and the boys lived happily ever after.

The End