Donkey Skin

Donkey Skin

There was once upon a time a king who was so much beloved by his

subjects that he thought himself the happiest monarch in the whole

world, and he had everything his heart could desire. His palace was

filled with the rarest of curiosities, and his gardens with the sweetest

flowers, while in the marble stalls of his stables stood a row of

milk-white Arabs, with big brown eyes.

Strangers who had heard of the marvels which the king had collected,

and made long journeys to see them, were, however, surprised to find the

most splendid stall of all occupied by a donkey, with particularly large

and drooping ears. It was a very fine donkey; but still, as far as they

could tell, nothing so very remarkable as to account for the care with

which it was lodged; and they went away wondering, for they could

not know that every night, when it was asleep, bushels of gold pieces

tumbled out of its ears, which were picked up each morning by the

attendants.

After many years of prosperity a sudden blow fell upon the king in the

death of his wife, whom he loved dearly. But before she died, the

queen, who had always thought first of his happiness, gathered all her

strength, and said to him:

‘Promise me one thing: you must marry again, I know, for the good of

your people, as well as of yourself. But do not set about it in a hurry.

Wait until you have found a woman more beautiful and better formed than

myself.’

‘Oh, do not speak to me of marrying,’ sobbed the king; ‘rather let me

die with you!’ But the queen only smiled faintly, and turned over on her

pillow and died.

For some months the king’s grief was great; then gradually he began to

forget a little, and, besides, his counsellors were always urging him to

seek another wife. At first he refused to listen to them, but by-and-by

he allowed himself to be persuaded to think of it, only stipulating that

the bride should be more beautiful and attractive than the late queen,

according to the promise he had made her.

Overjoyed at having obtained what they wanted, the counsellors sent

envoys far and wide to get portraits of all the most famous beauties of

every country. The artists were very busy and did their best, but, alas!

nobody could even pretend that any of the ladies could compare for a

moment with the late queen.

At length, one day, when he had turned away discouraged from a fresh

collection of pictures, the king’s eyes fell on his adopted daughter,

who had lived in the palace since she was a baby, and he saw that, if

a woman existed on the whole earth more lovely than the queen, this was

she! He at once made known what his wishes were, but the young girl, who

was not at all ambitious, and had not the faintest desire to marry him,

was filled with dismay, and begged for time to think about it. That

night, when everyone was asleep, she started in a little car drawn by a

big sheep, and went to consult her fairy godmother.

‘I know what you have come to tell me,’ said the fairy, when the maiden

stepped out of the car; ‘and if you don’t wish to marry him, I will show

you how to avoid it. Ask him to give you a dress that exactly matches

the sky. It will be impossible for him to get one, so you will be quite

safe.’ The girl thanked the fairy and returned home again.

The next morning, when her father (as she had always called him) came

to see her, she told him that she could give him no answer until he had

presented her with a dress the colour of the sky. The king, overjoyed

at this answer, sent for all the choicest weavers and dressmakers in the

kingdom, and commanded them to make a robe the colour of the sky without

an instant’s delay, or he would cut off their heads at once. Dreadfully

frightened at this threat, they all began to dye and cut and sew, and in

two days they brought back the dress, which looked as if it had been cut

straight out of the heavens! The poor girl was thunderstruck, and did

not know what to do; so in the night she harnessed her sheep again, and

went in search of her godmother.

‘The king is cleverer than I thought,’ said the fairy; ‘but tell him you

must have a dress of moonbeams.’

And the next day, when the king summoned her into his presence, the girl

told him what she wanted.

‘Madam, I can refuse you nothing,’ said he; and he ordered the dress to

be ready in twenty-four hours, or every man should be hanged.

They set to work with all their might, and by dawn next day, the dress

of moonbeams was laid across her bed. The girl, though she could not

help admiring its beauty, began to cry, till the fairy, who heard her,

came to her help.

‘Well, I could not have believed it of him!’ said she; ‘but ask for a

dress of sunshine, and I shall be surprised indeed if he manages that!’

The goddaughter did not feel much faith in the fairy after her two

previous failures; but not knowing what else to do, she told her father

what she was bid.

The king made no difficulties about it, and even gave his finest

rubies and diamonds to ornament the dress, which was so dazzling, when

finished, that it could not be looked at save through smoked glasses!

When the princess saw it, she pretended that the sight hurt her eyes,

and retired to her room, where she found the fairy awaiting her, very

much ashamed of herself.

‘There is only one thing to be done now,’ cried she; ‘you must demand

the skin of the ass he sets such store by. It is from that donkey he

obtains all his vast riches, and I am sure he will never give it to

you.’

The princess was not so certain; however, she went to the king, and told

him she could never marry him till he had given her the ass’s skin.

The king was both astonished and grieved at this new request, but did

not hesitate an instant. The ass was sacrificed, and the skin laid at

the feet of the princess.

The poor girl, seeing no escape from the fate she dreaded, wept afresh,

and tore her hair; when, suddenly, the fairy stood before her.

‘Take heart,’ she said, ‘all will now go well! Wrap yourself in this

skin, and leave the palace and go as far as you can. I will look after

you. Your dresses and your jewels shall follow you underground, and if

you strike the earth whenever you need anything, you will have it at

once. But go quickly: you have no time to lose.’

So the princess clothed herself in the ass’s skin, and slipped from the

palace without being seen by anyone.

Directly she was missed there was a great hue and cry, and every corner,

possible and impossible, was searched. Then the king sent out parties

along all the roads, but the fairy threw her invisible mantle over the

girl when they approached, and none of them could see her.

The princess walked on a long, long way, trying to find some one who

would take her in, and let her work for them; but though the cottagers,

whose houses she passed, gave her food from charity, the ass’s skin was

so dirty they would not allow her to enter their houses. For her flight

had been so hurried she had had no time to clean it.

Tired and disheartened at her ill-fortune, she was wandering, one day,

past the gate of a farmyard, situated just outside the walls of a large

town, when she heard a voice calling to her. She turned and saw the

farmer’s wife standing among her turkeys, and making signs to her to

come in.

‘I want a girl to wash the dishes and feed the turkeys, and clean out

the pig-sty,’ said the w omen, ‘and, to judge by your dirty clothes, you

would not be too fine for the work.’

The girl accepted her offer with joy, and she was at once set to work in

a corner of the kitchen, where all the farm servants came and made fun

of her, and the ass’s skin in which she was wrapped. But by-and-by they

got so used to the sight of it that it ceased to amuse them, and she

worked so hard and so well, that her mistress grew quite fond of her.

And she was so clever at keeping sheep and herding turkeys that you

would have thought she had done nothing else during her whole life!

One day she was sitting on the banks of a stream bewailing her wretched

lot, when she suddenly caught sight of herself in the water. Her hair

and part of her face was quite concealed by the ass’s head, which was

drawn right over like a hood, and the filthy matted skin covered her

whole body. It was the first time she had seen herself as other people

saw her, and she was filled with shame at the spectacle. Then she threw

off her disguise and jumped into the water, plunging in again and again,

till she shone like ivory. When it was time to go back to the farm, she

was forced to put on the skin which disguised her, and now seemed more

dirty than ever; but, as she did so, she comforted herself with the

thought that to-morrow was a holiday, and that she would be able for

a few hours to forget that she was a farm girl, and be a princess once

more.

So, at break of day, she stamped on the ground, as the fairy had told

her, and instantly the dress like the sky lay across her tiny bed. Her

room was so small that there was no place for the train of her dress to

spread itself out, but she pinned it up carefully when she combed her

beautiful hair and piled it up on the top of her head, as she had always

worn it. When she had done, she was so pleased with herself that

she determined never to let a chance pass of putting on her splendid

clothes, even if she had to wear them in the fields, with no one to

admire her but the sheep and turkeys.

Now the farm was a royal farm, and, one holiday, when ‘Donkey Skin’ (as

they had nicknamed the princess) had locked the door of her room and

clothed herself in her dress of sunshine, the king’s son rode through

the gate, and asked if he might come and rest himself a little after

hunting. Some food and milk were set before him in the garden, and when

he felt rested he got up, and began to explore the house, which was

famous throughout the whole kingdom for its age and beauty. He opened

one door after the other, admiring the old rooms, when he came to a

handle that would not turn. He stooped and peeped through the keyhole to

see what was inside, and was greatly astonished at beholding a beautiful

girl, clad in a dress so dazzling that he could hardly look at it.

The dark gallery seemed darker than ever as he turned away, but he went

back to the kitchen and inquired who slept in the room at the end of the

passage. The scullery maid, they told him, whom everybody laughed

at, and called ‘Donkey Skin;’ and though he perceived there was some

strange mystery about this, he saw quite clearly there was nothing to be

gained by asking any more questions. So he rode back to the palace, his

head filled with the vision he had seen through the keyhole.

All night long he tossed about, and awoke the next morning in a high

fever. The queen, who had no other child, and lived in a state of

perpetual anxiety about this one, at once gave him up for lost, and

indeed his sudden illness puzzled the greatest doctors, who tried the

usual remedies in vain. At last they told the queen that some secret

sorrow must be at the bottom of all this, and she threw herself on her

knees beside her son’s bed, and implored him to confide his trouble to

her. If it was ambition to be king, his father would gladly resign the

cares of the crown, and suffer him to reign in his stead; or, if it

was love, everything should be sacrificed to get for him the wife he

desired, even if she were daughter of a king with whom the country was

at war at present!

‘Madam,’ replied the prince, whose weakness would hardly allow him to

speak, ‘do not think me so unnatural as to wish to deprive my father of

his crown. As long as he lives I shall remain the most faithful of his

subjects! And as to the princesses you speak of, I have seen none that

I should care for as a wife, though I would always obey your wishes,

whatever it might cost me.’

‘Ah! my son,’ cried she, ‘we will do anything in the world to save your

life----and ours too, for if you die, we shall die also.’

‘Well, then,’ replied the prince, ‘I will tell you the only thing that

will cure me----a cake made by the hand of “Donkey Skin.”’

‘Donkey Skin?’ exclaimed the queen, who thought her son had gone mad;

‘and who or what is that?’

‘Madam,’ answered one of the attendants present, who had been with

the prince at the farm, ‘“Donkey Skin” is, next to the wolf, the most

disgusting creature on the face of the earth. She is a girl who wears a

black, greasy skin, and lives at your farmer’s as hen-wife.’

‘Never mind,’ said the queen; ‘my son seems to have eaten some of her

pastry. It is the whim of a sick man, no doubt; but send at once and let

her bake a cake.’

The attendant bowed and ordered a page to ride with the message.

Now it is by no means certain that ‘Donkey Skin’ had not caught a

glimpse of the prince, either when his eyes looked through the keyhole,

or else from her little window, which was over the road. But whether she

had actually seen him or only heard him spoken of, directly she received

the queen’s command, she flung off the dirty skin, washed herself from

head to foot, and put on a skirt and bodice of shining silver. Then,

locking herself into her room, she took the richest cream, the finest

flour, and the freshest eggs on the farm, and set about making her cake.

As she was stirring the mixture in the saucepan a ring that she

sometimes wore in secret slipped from her finger and fell into the

dough. Perhaps ‘Donkey Skin’ saw it, or perhaps she did not; but, any

way, she went on stirring, and soon the cake was ready to be put in the

oven. When it was nice and brown she took off her dress and put on her

dirty skin, and gave the cake to the page, asking at the same time for

news of the prince. But the page turned his head aside, and would not

even condescend to answer.

The page rode like the wind, and as soon as he arrived at the palace

he snatched up a silver tray and hastened to present the cake to the

prince. The sick man began to eat it so fast that the doctors thought he

would choke; and, indeed, he very nearly did, for the ring was in one

of the bits which he broke off, though he managed to extract it from his

mouth without anyone seeing him.

The moment the prince was left alone he drew the ring from under his

pillow and kissed it a thousand times. Then he set his mind to find how

he was to see the owner---for even he did not dare to confess that he

had only beheld ‘Donkey Skin’ through a keyhole, lest they should laugh

at this sudden passion. All this worry brought back the fever, which the

arrival of the cake had diminished for the time; and the doctors, not

knowing what else to say, informed the queen that her son was simply

dying of love. The queen, stricken with horror, rushed into the king’s

presence with the news, and together they hastened to their son’s

bedside.

‘My boy, my dear boy!’ cried the king, ‘who is it you want to marry?

We will give her to you for a bride; even if she is the humblest of our

slaves. What is there in the whole world that we would not do for you?’

The prince, moved to tears at these words, drew the ring, which was an

emerald of the purest water, from under his pillow.

‘Ah, dear father and mother, let this be a proof that she whom I love

is no peasant girl. The finger which that ring fits has never been

thickened by hard work. But be her condition what it may, I will marry

no other.’

The king and queen examined the tiny ring very closely, and agreed, with

their son, that the wearer could be no mere farm girl. Then the king

went out and ordered heralds and trumpeters to go through the town,

summoning every maiden to the palace. And she whom the ring fitted would

some day be queen.

First came all the princesses, then all the duchesses’ daughters, and

so on, in proper order. But not one of them could slip the ring over the

tip of her finger, to the great joy of the prince, whom excitement

was fast curing. At last, when the high-born damsels had failed, the

shopgirls and chambermaids took their turn; but with no better fortune.

‘Call in the scullions and shepherdesses,’ commanded the prince; but the

sight of their fat, red fingers satisfied everybody.

‘There is not a woman left, your Highness,’ said the chamberlain; but

the prince waved him aside.

‘Have you sent for “Donkey Skin,” who made me the cake?’ asked he, and

the courtiers began to laugh, and replied that they would not have dared

to introduce so dirty a creature into the palace.

‘Let some one go for her at once,’ ordered the king. ‘I commanded the

presence of every maiden, high or low, and I meant it.’

The princess had heard the trumpets and the proclamations, and knew

quite well that her ring was at the bottom of it all. She, too, had

fallen in love with the prince in the brief glimpse she had had of him,

and trembled with fear lest someone else’s finger might be as small as

her own. When, therefore, the messenger from the palace rode up to the

gate, she was nearly beside herself with delight. Hoping all the time

for such a summons, she had dressed herself with great care, putting on

the garment of moonlight, whose skirt was scattered over with emeralds.

But when they began calling to her to come down, she hastily covered

herself with her donkey-skin and announced she was ready to present

herself before his Highness. She was taken straight into the hall, where

the prince was awaiting her, but at the sight of the donkey-skin his

heart sank. Had he been mistaken after all?

‘Are you the girl,’ he said, turning his eyes away as he spoke, ‘are you

the girl who has a room in the furthest corner of the inner court of the

farmhouse?’

‘Yes, my lord, I am,’ answered she.

‘Hold out your hand then,’ continued the prince, feeling that he must

keep his word, whatever the cost, and, to the astonishment of every one

present, a little hand, white and delicate, came from beneath the black

and dirty skin. The ring slipped on with the utmost ease, and, as it did

so, the skin fell to the ground, disclosing a figure of such beauty that

the prince, weak as he was, fell on his knees before her, while the

king and queen joined their prayers to his. Indeed, their welcome was so

warm, and their caresses so bewildering, that the princess hardly knew

how to find words to reply, when the ceiling of the hall opened, and the

fairy godmother appeared, seated in a car made entirely of white lilac.

In a few words she explained the history of the princess, and how she

came to be there, and, without losing a moment, preparations of the most

magnificent kind were made for the wedding.

The kings of every country in the earth were invited, including, of

course, the princess’s adopted father (who by this time had married a

widow), and not one refused.

But what a strange assembly it was! Each monarch travelled in the way

he thought most impressive; and some came borne in litters, others

had carriages of every shape and kind, while the rest were mounted on

elephants, tigers, and even upon eagles. So splendid a wedding had never

been seen before; and when it was over the king announced that it was

to be followed by a coronation, for he and the queen were tired of

reigning, and the young couple must take their place. The rejoicings

lasted for three whole months, then the new sovereigns settled down

to govern their kingdom, and made themselves so much beloved by their

subjects, that when they died, a hundred years later, each man mourned

them as his own father and mother.

[From le Cabinet de Fees.]