Section09.pdf - MIT Media Laboratory

that I must go to the lion. Let us be happy tonight, and
tomorrow I shall go in search of the lion—who perhaps
may spare my life if I beg him hard enough.’
Next moming she set out into the forest and found
the lion waiting forher under the tree where the singing,
soaring lark had lived. He led her into the great castle,
which seemed to befull oflions,buthe treated herkindly
and did her no harm.
Then darkness came, and as soon as the sun had set
all the lions tumed into men, and the lion knelt before
her, a handsome young Prince, who explained that he
and all his followers were under an enchantment.
‘We are lions by day,’ he said, ‘but retum to our own
forms at night.’
By night Prince Lion and the merchant’s daughter
loved one another on sight: so they were married by
night with great magnificence, and lived for some years
in the castle, sleeping always during the day.
At last news came that the merchant’s eldest daughter
5, was about to be married, and the Princess begged her
husband to let her go to the wedding. He agreed at once
and led her with a guard of lions to the edge of the
forest near her father’s house.
The Merchant was overjoyed to see her, for he was
certain that she had been torn to pieces and eaten long
ago. She stayed with them while the wedding-feast
lasted, and then went happily back to the Castle of
Lions.
When her second sister was about to be married, the
Princess begged her husband the Prince Lion to tome
with her to the wedding.
‘I dare not come,’ he answered, ‘for if a single ray
of candle-light should fall on me, I would be turned
into a dove for seven years and be forced to fly away
with the doves for all that time. And unless you were
by torelease me at the end ofthose seven years, I should
remain a dove for ever.’
But the Princess promised that no ray of candle-light
should fall on him; and she went ahead to her father’s
house where she prepared a room with walls so thick
that no ray of light could pass through them; and she And if you follow me faithfully, you may save me when
had a new door made for it.
the seven years are ended.’
Then the Prince came. And when it was time to Then the dove flew out of the door, and the Princess
light the wedding candles he went into the dark room set out after him. And at every seventh step she found a
and shut the door behind him. But the new door was little white feather to show her the way.
made of green wood, and it had warped, leaving a little So she continued further and further into the wide
crack so small that no one noticed it. As the wedding world, never looking about her and never resting, until
procession passed it a ray of light no thicker than a hair the seven years were almost past, and she began to
fell through it on to the Prince, and when the Princess rejoice at the thought that she would soon see her Prince
came in to look for him after the wedding, she found again.
only a white dove sitting there.
But the end was not yet. Suddenly no little white
‘For seven years I must fly about the world!’ cried feather fluttered down to show her the way, and looking
the dove. ‘But if you will follow me, I will lee drop up she saw to her bewilderment and dismaythat the dove
at every seventh step a little white feather to guide you. had disappeared.
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