Chapter IV: Part 4

When Goldilocks heard of Charming’s disgrace she threw herself at the King’s feet and begged him to set Charming free; but the more she wept and pleaded the more angry the King became, thinking that she loved Charming. At last she saw that it was of no use to plead any more; but she was very sad.

The King took it into his head that perhaps she did not think him handsome enough. So he thought he would bathe his face with the water from the Fountain of Beauty, which was in a flask on a shelf in the Queen’s room. She had put it there so that she might look at it often. Now it happened that one of the housemaids in chasing a spider had knocked the flask off the shelf. It had broken and all the water had been spilled. She swept up the pieces in great haste, and was at her wits’ end what to do, when she remembered that she had seen in the King’s room a flask just like this, filled with clear water. Without saying a word to any one, she fetched that and placed it on the Queen’s shelf.

Now the liquid in the King’s flask was what was used in the kingdom for getting rid of unruly nobles. Instead of having their heads cut off, these nobles had their faces bathed with this water, and they fell asleep and never woke up. So one evening the King, thinking to make himself handsome, took the flask and bathed his face in the water. Then he fell asleep and never woke up again.

Little Frolic was the first to find out what had happened, and he ran to tell Charming, who told him to go to Princess Goldilocks and beg her not to forget the poor prisoner. All the court was in great confusion because of the King’s death, but Frolic made his way through the crowd and said to the Queen, “Madam, do not forget poor Charming.”

She remembered all he had done and suffered for her, and without saying a word to any one she went straight to the tower, and with her own hands took off Charming’s chains. Then, placing a crown upon his head and the royal mantle on his shoulders, she said, “Come, dear Charming, I make you King, and take you for my husband.”

Charming threw himself at her feet and thanked her.

Every one was delighted that he should be King. The wedding, which took place at once, was the prettiest ever seen, and Prince Charming and Princess Goldilocks lived happily ever after.

NOTES

In his critical edition of “Perrault’s Popular Tales,” Andrew Lang has said that “all the incidents of popular tales, like the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope, may be shaken into a practically limitless number of combinations.” All that can be done in a book of this size is to choose the best of these combinations. The notes below indicate parallels where the resemblance between tales is close and where a version originally foreign has practically superseded the early English rendering.

Page 1. Rumpelstiltskin. Source: “Kinder- und Hausmärchen,” by Jacob Grimm (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786–1859). These German brothers made a large and valuable collection of fairy tales, gathering them from oral tradition and retelling them. English Parallel: “Tom Tit Tot.” This is the best of a group of stories involving the task of guessing a name, with which is here combined the demand by a supernatural being for a human child.

Page 9. Doll-in-the-Grass. Source: “Popular Tales from the Norse,” by George W. Dasent (Edinburgh, 1859), who translated it from the Norse collection of Peter Christen Asbjörnsen and Jörgen Moe. Parallels: Grimm’s “The Three Feathers,” and Madame D’Aulnoy’s “The White Cat” (Fairy Tales, Vol. II). In each of these stories sons are sent out to seek their fortune and return at last with wives.

Page 14. How to tell a Real Princess. Source: “Stories and Tales,” by Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875), a collection of tales by one of the greatest story-tellers in the world. He originated many plots, and retold even familiar tales in a style that made them distinctly his own.

Page 17. The Frog Prince. Source: Grimm. English Parallel: “The Well at the World’s End.” One of the oldest stories in Germany. Sometimes called “Iron Henry.”

Page 26. Cinderella. Source: “Contes de Ma Mère l’Oye,” by Charles Perrault (1628–1703), published in France in 1697. The best English translation was printed in 1795 under the title, “Tales of Passed Times, by Mother Goose.... Written in French by M. Perrault, and Englished by R. S. Gent.” Our versions follow as closely as is consistent with modern English the quaint language of this book. Appearing as they did at a time when French society was reacting against its own extravagances, these simple, fresh stories became instantly popular. They were published under the name of Perrault’s little boy, and many critics think that “the naïveté and popular traditional manner of telling” are due to him, while they recognize the polish of style and skill of selection of his literary father. Parallels: Many; but, as Mr. Lang says, “here we can distinctly see how the taste and judgment of Perrault altered an old and barbarous detail,” by substituting the fairy godmother for the friendly beast of earlier tales, and also by beautifying the stepmother incident.

Page 42. Hans in Luck. Source: Grimm.

Page 56. Diamonds and Toads. Source: Perrault, under the title of “Les Fées.” Parallel: A universal tale with many variants, both in the motif of politeness rewarded, and in the incident of the adventures of the good and bad sisters or brothers.

Page 62. Puss in Boots. Source: Perrault. Mr. Lang sums up the plot as that of “a young man brought from poverty to the throne by the aid of a matchmaking and ingenious beast,” and remarks that “Puss is a perfectly unscrupulous adventurer for no reason but the fun of the thing.”

Page 75. Rapunzel. Source: Grimm.

Page 86. Beauty and the Beast. Source: The original tale, as told by Madame Villeneuve (died in 1755), occupies two hundred pages of the “Cabinet des Fées,” Vol. 26 (1787). The framework and much of the text of our abridged version are taken from a chapbook, published in Glasgow by Francis Orr & Sons, which is in the Harvard Library.

Page 108. The Steadfast Tin Soldier. Source: Hans Andersen’s “Wonder Stories Told for Children.”

Page 118. Hop-o’-my-Thumb. Source: Perrault. “A tale which has signs of great antiquity.”

Page 139. “Ainsel.” Source: T. Keightley’s “Fairy Mythology.” Parallels: A tale widely current in England with many slight variations. Cf. the outwitting of Polyphemus by Ulysses in the Odyssey.

Page 141. Peronella. Source: “A Fairy-Book,” Harper & Brothers, 1836. Parallels: Many tales of wishes fulfilled. A traditional tale of long standing in England.

Page 149. Fair Goldilocks. Source: Madame D’Aulnoy, a Frenchwoman who wrote many fairy tales. French text in “Cabinet des Fées,” Vol. 2 (1787); English translation consulted under the title “The Fair One with Golden Locks” in “Queen Mab ... written by the Countess D’Aulnoy, London, 1770.”

FOOTNOTE

[1] That is, ownself.