A friend of mine and I would occasionally collaborate on different projects. On this particular project, she gave me a drawing and had me write the story behind it. The drawing had a folk-art style to it, and since I was taking a Russian Fairy Tales class at the time, it seemed appropriate that I try my hand at writing my own folk tale. Unfortunately, I no longer have the picture she sent me, so you’ll have to make do with my descriptions and use your imagination.
I hope you enjoy! Tell me what you think in the comment section below.
The Princess and Her Presents
Once upon a time there was a powerful king. This king had a beautiful daughter. Every boy in the land wanted to marry her, and every girl wanted to be her best friend.
Every Friday at noon they would line up and bring her presents. The first was a young girl with rosy cheeks and a big blue collar. Her shirt had black diamonds and her skirt was striped with red and white. She put on pretty pink ballet slippers and gave the princess a flower.
The princess loved the flower and requested that the young girl dance for her. The girl in the ballet slippers twirled and leaped across the hall. The princess was delighted and said she would love for the girl to be her friend. She asked her guard to take the young girl to a special room where she would meet her later to dance. The young dancer skipped gleefully with the guard to the room and disappeared.
Next in line was a young man with hair dark as a raven. He wore a suit of feathers and a beak on his nose. He gave the princess an egg he had decorated so skillfully. He nervously tapped is curly-toed shoes on the marble floor as the princess delicately held the egg.
After several minutes she exclaimed that it was the most beautiful egg she had ever seen. She asked her guard to take this young man to the same room as the dancer, and that when she was done in the hall she would visit him and they would paint eggs together.
Last in line was a sailor. He wore a striped shirt and blacks boots made for walking on slippery boat decks. He had a curly red beard but no hair on his head, which he hid with a cap much like his shirt. In his hands he held seawater from the farthest corners of the world, for then they thought the earth was flat.
The princess took the water and tasted it. She made a face because it was salty. The sailor told her it wasn’t for drinking, but at night if she turned off all the lights and shook up the jar, it would glow. The princess squealed in delight and immediately ordered the sailor to be taken to the room with the dancer and the egg-painter.
The guard left the sailor in the room with the other two, and they waited for a very long time for the princess to show up. Finally she did. Only now her hair was much longer and her face had lines in it, like she had aged many years. When she opened the door to the room she wept bitterly.
As a young girl she liked to collect beautiful things, but she loved too many and forgot about them the moment something else came along. She had collected these three trophies years ago and had ordered them to this room and forgotten about them.
So many years had passed and the three people she had collected had passed away. The dancer was stuck in mid-twirl, her clothing hanging loose on her skeleton body. The egg-painter stood with paintbrush in hand, but nothing to paint on for he had no more eggs. And lastly, the sailor sat still against the wall. He had given the princess his last bit of the sea, and there was nothing for him to do the many years he was stuck in the room, waiting for the princess to come visit.
This Stage of Life 