The Blue Fairy Book
have only to ask me for anything you want and I promise that I will give
it to you.”
“Madam,” said the good King, “since you are a fairy you no doubt know
all my wishes. I have but one son whom I love very dearly, that is why
he is called Prince Darling. If you are really good enough to wish to do
me a favor, I beg that you will become his friend.”
“With all my heart,” answered the Fairy. “I can make your son the
handsomest prince in the world, or the richest, or the most powerful;
choose whichever you like for him.”
“I do not ask either of these things for my son,” replied the good
King; “but if you will make him the best of princes, I shall indeed be
grateful to you. What good would it do him to be rich, or handsome, or
to possess all the kingdoms of the world if he were wicked? You
know well he would still be unhappy. Only a good man can be really
contented.”
“You are quite right,” answered the Fairy; “but it is not in my power to
make Prince Darling a good man unless he will help me; he must himself
try hard to become good, I can only promise to give him good advice, to
scold him for his faults, and to punish him if he will not correct and
punish himself.”
The good King was quite satisfied with this promise; and very soon
afterward he died.
Prince Darling was very sorry, for he loved his father with all his
heart, and he would willingly have given all his kingdoms and all his
treasures of gold and silver if they could have kept the good King with
him.
Two days afterward, when the Prince had gone to bed, the Fairy suddenly
appeared to him and said:
“I promised your father that I would be your friend, and to keep my word
I have come to bring you a present.” At the same time she put a little
gold ring upon his finger.
“Take great care of this ring,” she said: “it is more precious than
diamonds; every time you do a bad deed it will prick your finger, but
if, in spite of its pricking, you go on in your own evil way, you will
lose my friendship, and I shall become your enemy.”
So saying, the Fairy disappeared, leaving Prince Darling very much
astonished.
For some time he behaved so well that the ring never pricked him, and
that made him so contented that his subjects called him Prince Darling
the Happy.
One day, however, he went out hunting, but could get no sport, which
put him in a very bad temper; it seemed to him as he rode along that his
ring was pressing into his finger, but as it did not prick him he did
not heed it. When he got home and went to his own room, his little dog
Bibi ran to meet him, jumping round him with pleasure. “Get away!” said
the Prince, quite gruffly. “I don’t want you, you are in the way.”
The poor little dog, who didn’t understand this at all, pulled at his
coat to make him at least look at her, and this made Prince Darling so
cross that he gave her quite a hard kick.
Instantly his ring pricked him sharply, as if it had been a pin. He was
very much surprised, and sat down in a corner of his room feeling quite
ashamed of himself.
“I believe the Fairy is laughing at me,” he thought. “Surely I can have
done no great wrong in just kicking a tiresome animal! What is the good
of my being ruler of a great kingdom if I am not even allowed to beat my
own dog?”
“I am not making fun of you,” said a voice, answering Prince Darling’s
thoughts. “You have committed three faults. First of all, you were out
of temper because you could not have what you wanted, and you thought
all men and animals were only made to do your pleasure; then you were
really angry, which is very naughty indeed; and lastly, you were
cruel to a poor little animal who did not in the least deserve to be
ill-treated.
“I know you are far above a little dog, but if it were right and
allowable that great people should ill-treat all who are beneath them, I
might at this moment beat you, or kill you, for a fairy is greater than
a man. The advantage of possessing a great empire is not to be able to
do the evil that one desires, but to do all the good that one possibly
can.”
The Prince saw how naughty he had been, and promised to try and do
better in future, but he did not keep his word. The fact was he had been
brought up by a foolish nurse, who had spoiled him when he was little.
If he wanted anything he only had to cry and fret and stamp his feet
and she would give him whatever he asked for, which had made him
self-willed; also she had told him from morning to night that he would
one day be a king, and that kings were very happy, because everyone was
bound to obey and respect them, and no one could prevent them from doing
just as they liked.
When the Prince grew old enough to understand, he soon learned that
there could be nothing worse than to be proud, obstinate, and conceited,
and he had really tried to cure himself of these defects, but by that
time all his faults had become habits; and a bad habit is very hard to
get rid of. Not that he was naturally of a bad disposition; he was truly
sorry when he had been naughty, and said:
“I am very unhappy to have to struggle against my anger and pride every
day; if I had been punished for them when I was little they would not be
such a trouble to me now.”
His ring pricked him very often, and sometimes he left off what he was
doing at once; but at other times he would not attend to it. Strangely
enough, it gave him only a slight prick for a trifling fault, but when
he was really naughty it made his finger actually bleed. At last he got
tired of being constantly reminded, and wanted to be able to do as he
liked, so he threw his ring aside, and thought himself the happiest of
men to have got rid of its teasing pricks. He gave himself up to doing
every foolish thing that occurred to him, until he became quite wicked
and nobody could like him any longer.
One day, when the Prince was walking about, he saw a young girl who was
so very pretty that he made up his mind at once that he would marry her.
Her name was Celia, and she was as good as she was beautiful.
Prince Darling fancied that Celia would think herself only too happy if
he offered to make her a great queen, but she said fearlessly:
“Sire, I am only a shepherdess, and a poor girl, but, nevertheless, I
will not marry you.”
“Do you dislike me?” asked the Prince, who was very much vexed at this
answer.
“No, my Prince,” replied Celia; “I cannot help thinking you very
handsome; but what good would riches be to me, and all the grand dresses
and splendid carriages that you would give me, if the bad deeds which I
should see you do every day made me hate and despise you?”
The Prince was very angry at this speech, and commanded his officers to
make Celia a prisoner and carry her off to his palace. All day long the
remembrance of what she had said annoyed him, but as he loved her he
could not make up his mind to have her punished.
One of the Prince’s favorite companions was his foster-brother, whom
he trusted entirely; but he was not at all a good man, and gave Prince
Darling very bad advice, and encouraged him in all his evil ways. When
he saw the Prince so downcast he asked what was the matter, and when
he explained that he could not bear Celia’s bad opinion of him, and was
resolved to be a better man in order to please her, this evil adviser
said to him:
“You are very kind to trouble yourself about this little girl; if I were
you I would soon make her obey me. Remember that you are a king, and
that it would be laughable to see you trying to please a shepherdess,
who ought to be only too glad to be one of your slaves. Keep her in
prison, and feed her on bread and water for a little while, and then, if
she still says she will not marry you, have her head cut off, to teach
other people that you mean to be obeyed. Why, if you cannot make a girl
like that do as you wish, your subjects will soon forget that they are
only put into this world for our pleasure.”
“But,” said Prince Darling, “would it not be a shame if I had an
innocent girl put to death? For Celia has done nothing to deserve
punishment.”
“If people will not do as you tell them they ought to suffer for it,”
answered his foster-brother; “but even if it were unjust, you had better
be accused of that by your subjects than that they should find out that
they may insult and thwart you as often as they please.”
In saying this he was touching a weak point in his brother’s character;
for the Prince’s fear of losing any of his power made him at once
abandon his first idea of trying to be good, and resolve to try and
frighten the shepherdess into consenting to marry him.
His foster-brother, who wanted him to keep this resolution, invited
three young courtiers, as wicked as himself to sup with the Prince,
and they persuaded him to drink a great deal of wine, and continued to
excite his anger against Celia by telling him that she had laughed at
his love for her; until at last, in quite a furious rage, he rushed off
to find her, declaring that if she still refused to marry him she should
be sold as a slave the very next day.
But when he reached the room in which Celia had been locked up, he was
greatly surprised to find that she was not in it, though he had the key
in his own pocket all the time. His anger was terrible, and he vowed
vengeance against whoever had helped her to escape. His bad friends,
when they heard him, resolved to turn his wrath upon an old nobleman who
had formerly been his tutor; and who still dared sometimes to tell the
Prince of his faults, for he loved him as if he had been his own son. At
first Prince Darling had thanked him, but after a time he grew impatient
and thought it must be just mere love of fault-finding that made his old
tutor blame him when everyone else was praising and flattering him. So
he ordered him to retire from his Court, though he still, from time
to time, spoke of him as a worthy man whom he respected, even if he no
longer loved him. His unworthy friends feared that he might some day
take it into his head to recall his old tutor, so they thought they now
had a good opportunity of getting him banished for ever.
They reported to the Prince that Suliman, for that was the tutor’s name,
had boasted of having helped Celia to escape, and they bribed three men
to say that Suliman himself had told them about it. The Prince, in great
anger, sent his foster-brother with a number of soldiers to bring his
tutor before him, in chains, like a criminal. After giving this order he
went to his own room, but he had scarcely got into it when there was
a clap of thunder which made the ground shake, and the Fairy Truth
appeared suddenly before him.
“I promised your father,” said she sternly, “to give you good advice,
and to punish you if you refused to follow it. You have despised my
counsel, and have gone your own evil way until you are only outwardly a
man; really you are a monster--the horror of everyone who knows you. It
is time that I should fulfil my promise, and begin your punishment. I
condemn you to resemble the animals whose ways you have imitated. You
have made yourself like the lion by your anger, and like the wolf by
your greediness. Like a snake, you have ungratefully turned upon one who
was a second father to you; your churlishness has made you like a bull.
Therefore, in your new form, take the appearance of all these animals.”
The Fairy had scarcely finished speaking when Prince Darling saw to his
horror that her words were fulfilled. He had a lion’s head, a bull’s
horns, a wolf’s feet, and a snake’s body. At the same instant he found
himself in a great forest, beside a clear lake, in which he could see
plainly the horrible creature he had become, and a voice said to him:
“Look carefully at the state to which your wickedness has brought you;