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.
Donkey Skin (Part 1)
Once upon a time there was a king who was the most powerful ruler in the whole world. Kind and just in peace and terrifying in war, his enemies feared him while his subjects were happy and content. His wife and faithful companion was both charming and beautiful. From their union a daughter had been born.
Their large and magnificent palace was filled with courtiers, and their stables boasted steeds large and small, of every description. But what surprised everyone on entering these stables was that the place of honor was held by a donkey with two big ears. However, it was quite worthy of this position, for every morning, instead of dung, it dropped a great load of gold coins upon the trash.
Now heaven, which seems to join good with evil, suddenly tolerable a bitter illness to attack the queen. Help was sought on all sides, but neither the learned physicians nor the quacks were able to arrest the fever which increased daily. Finally, her last hour having come, the queen said to her husband: "Promise me that if, when I am gone, you find a woman wiser and more beautiful than I, and you will marry her and so provide an inheritor for throne."
Confident that it would be impossible to find such a woman, the queen thus believed that her husband would never remarry. The king accepted his wife's conditions, and shortly thereafter she died in his arms.
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| Donkey Skin-Charles Perrault |
Donkey Skin (Part 1)
A Fairy tale story, by-Charles Perrault
Once upon a time there was a king who was the most powerful ruler in the whole world. Kind and just in peace and terrifying in war, his enemies feared him while his subjects were happy and content. His wife and faithful companion was both charming and beautiful. From their union a daughter had been born.
Their large and magnificent palace was filled with courtiers, and their stables boasted steeds large and small, of every description. But what surprised everyone on entering these stables was that the place of honor was held by a donkey with two big ears. However, it was quite worthy of this position, for every morning, instead of dung, it dropped a great load of gold coins upon the trash.
Now heaven, which seems to join good with evil, suddenly tolerable a bitter illness to attack the queen. Help was sought on all sides, but neither the learned physicians nor the quacks were able to arrest the fever which increased daily. Finally, her last hour having come, the queen said to her husband: "Promise me that if, when I am gone, you find a woman wiser and more beautiful than I, and you will marry her and so provide an inheritor for throne."
Confident that it would be impossible to find such a woman, the queen thus believed that her husband would never remarry. The king accepted his wife's conditions, and shortly thereafter she died in his arms.
