This fairy tale story is collected from the book named, Old-Time Stories told by Master Charles Perrault. This fairy tale story book was translated by A. F. Johnson and published from New York, Dodd Mead and Company, 1921.
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| Donkey Skin |
Donkey Skin (Part 2)
-A Fairy tale story
One day the young prince, seeking adventure from court yard to court yard, came to the vague hallway where Donkey Skin had her humble room. By chance he put his eye to the key hole. It was a feast-day and Donkey Skin had put on her dress of gold and diamonds which shone as brightly as the sun. The prince was breathless at her beauty, her youthfulness, and her modesty. Three times he was on the point of entering her room, but each time renounced.
On his return to his father's palace, the prince became very thoughtful, sighing day and night and refusing to attend any of the balls and carnivals. He lost his appetite and finally sank into sad and deadly grief. He asked who this beautiful maiden was that lived in such dirtiness and was told that it was Donkey Skin, the ugliest animal one could find, except the wolf, and a certain cure for love. This he would not believe, and he refused to forget what he had seen.
His mother, the queen, begged him to tell her what was wrong. Instead, he moaned, wept and sighed. He would say nothing, except that he wanted Donkey Skin to make him a cake with her own hands.
"Oh! Heavens," they told the queen, "this Donkey Skin is only a poor, drab servant."
"It makes no difference," replied the queen. "We must do as the prince says. It is the only way to save him."
So Donkey Skin took some flour which she had ground especially fine, and some salt, some butter and some fresh eggs and shut herself alone in her room to make the cake. But first she washed her face and hands and put on a silver smock (one kind of dress) in honor of the task she had undertaken.
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| Donkey Skin |
Now the story goes that, working perhaps a little too quickly, there fell from Donkey Skin's finger into the batter a ring of great value. Some who know the outcome of this story think that she may have dropped the ring on purpose, and they are probably right, for when the prince stopped at her door and looked through the key hole, she must have known it. And she was sure that the ring would be received most joyfully by her lover.
The prince found the cake so good that in his seizing hunger, he almost ate the ring! When the prince saw the beautiful emerald and the band of gold that traced the shape of Donkey Skin's finger, his heart was filled with an indescribable joy. At once he put the ring under his pillow, but his illness increased daily until finally the doctors, seeing him grow badly, gravely concluded that he was sick with love.
Marriage, whatever may be said against it, is an excellent medicine for love sickness. And so it was decided that the prince was to marry.
"But I insist," the prince said, "that I will wed only the person whom this ring fits." This unusual demand surprised the king and queen very much, but the prince was so ill that they did not dare object.
A search began for whoever might be able to fit the ring on her finger, no matter what the place in life. It was rumored throughout the land that in order to win the prince one must have a very fine finger. Every quack had his secret method of making the finger slim. One suggested scraping it as though it was a turnip. Another recommended cutting away a small piece. Still another, with a certain liquid, planned to decrease the size by removing the skin.
At last the trials began with the princesses, the marquesses (marquess- a British nobleman ranking above an earl and below a duke) and the duchesses, but their fingers, although delicate, were too big for the ring. Then the countesses, the baronesses and all the nobility presented their hands, but all in vain. Next came the working girls, who often have slender and beautiful fingers, but the ring would not fit them, either.
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| Donkey Skin |
Finally it was necessary to turn to the servants, the kitchen help, the slaves and the poultry keepers, with their red and dirty hands. Putting the tiny ring on their awkward fingers was like trying to thread a big rope through the eye of a needle.
At last the trials were finished. There remained only Donkey Skin in her far corner of the farm kitchen. Who could dream that she ever would be queen?
"And why not?" asked the prince. "Ask her to come here." At that, some started to laugh; others cried out against bringing that frightful creature into the room. But when she drew out from under the donkey skin a little hand as white as ivory and the ring was placed on her finger and fitted perfectly, everyone was astonished.
They prepared to take her to the king at once, but she asked that before she appeared before her lord and master, she be permitted to change her clothes. To tell the truth, there was some smiling at this request, but when she arrived at the palace in her beautiful dress, the richness of which had never been equaled, with her blonde hair all alight with diamonds and her blue eyes sweet and appealing and even her waist so lean that two hands could have encircled it, then even the polite ladies of the court seemed, by comparison, to have lost all their charms. In all this happiness and enthusiasm, the king did not fail to notice the charms of his forthcoming daughter-in-law, and the queen was completely delighted with her. The prince himself found his happiness almost more than he could bear. Preparations for the wedding were begun at once, and the kings of all the surrounding countries were invited. Some came from the East, mounted on huge elephants. Others were so ferocious looking that they frightened the little children. From all the corners of the world they came and descended on the court in great numbers.
But neither the prince nor the many visiting kings appeared in such splendor as the bride's father, who now recognized his daughter and begged her forgiveness.
"How kind heaven is," he said, "to let me see you again, my dear daughter." Weeping with joy, he embraced her tenderly. His happiness was shared by all, and the future husband was delighted to find that his father-in-law was such a powerful king. At that moment the fairy godmother arrived, too, and told the whole story of what had happened, and what she had to tell added the final triumph for Donkey Skin.
The fairy godmother of the princess said to all, “It is not hard to see that the moral of this tale is that it is better to undergo the greatest hardships rather than to fail in one's duty, that virtue may sometimes seem ill-fated but will always triumph in the end”.
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