King Thrushbeard

Once upon a time, in a white castle, there lived a princess as lovely as a May morning and as proud as a rooster on a fence. She had just one problem: she could not stop laughing at people.

One day the king, her father, invited guests to the castle: princes, dukes and kings from the neighboring lands. He thought that perhaps his daughter would make a friend or two, and who knew, she might even choose a husband. The guests lined up in a row in the great hall, and the princess walked along the line, finding a word for each one.

"This one is fat as a barrel of honey!" she snorted.

"And this one is long and wobbly as a beanpole!"

"And this one is red as a boiled crab!"

The courtiers giggled, and the guests blushed and stared at the floor. The last in line was a young king, smiling, with a reddish little beard. His chin was a tiny bit crooked, just barely, and so his beard stuck out to one side.

"Oh, look!" the princess laughed. "A beard like a thrush’s beak! King Thrushbeard!"

The whole hall roared with laughter. The young king only blushed, bowed without a word and left. The king, her father, sighed heavily, but he said nothing.

The next morning a fiddle began to play under the princess’s window. It was a wandering musician: a patched gray coat, a hat pulled down over his eyes, a green scarf wound right up to his nose. On the neck of his fiddle was carved a little wooden bird.

"Hey, fiddler!" the princess called from the window. "Your coat is nothing but patch upon patch! Did you borrow it from the sparrows?"

The musician lowered his bow and answered calmly:

"It’s easy to laugh when you sit up high. Try living for a month where I live."

"I’ll live there a month and never even wince!" the princess cried proudly.

"A princess’s word is a firm word," said the king, her father. He said it sternly, but for some reason he hid a smile in his mustache.

And so it happened that the princess, in a plain linen dress, followed the musician out of the castle.

They walked through a great forest.

"Whose forest is this?" asked the princess.

"King Thrushbeard’s."

They walked across green meadows.

"And whose meadows are these?"

"King Thrushbeard’s."

They passed through a lovely town with red roofs.

"And whose town is this?"

"King Thrushbeard’s too."

"Oh," sighed the princess, "if only I hadn’t laughed back then…"

At last they came to a little cottage with a low door.

"This is where I live," said the musician.

The princess ducked so as not to bump her head, and looked around. No servants, no carpets, only a stove, a table and two benches.

"But who will light the fire? Who will cook supper?"

"We will, you and I," the musician smiled.

Her first porridge burned until it was black. The musician didn’t scold; he only showed her how to stir it and when to take it off the fire. The second came out thin as soup. But the third was not bad at all, even tasty.

Then he brought an armful of willow twigs.

"Let’s weave some baskets. People are glad to buy them."

The willow scratched and whipped her fingers. By evening the princess’s hands were red and scratched. She blew on them and said quietly:

"Oh, if only I hadn’t laughed back then…"

Then the musician brought a whole cartload of pots and jugs from the potter’s.

"Sit with them at the fair. For pots, people will give bread, or cheese, or eggs."

On the first day all went well. The princess’s pots were pretty, and she herself was prettier still, so people came up and bought. For the first time in her life the princess felt proud, not of a dress, but of her own work.

But on the second day a cart came rumbling through the fair. The driver was dozing, the horse shied, and right into the pots! Clink! Clatter! Crash! Nothing but shards on the ground.

The princess stood among the broken pieces and did not know what to do. And all around, people were already laughing.

"Some trader she is!"

"Princess Potter!"

"So proud herself, and her pots are broken!"

Her cheeks burned as if someone had rubbed them with nettles. And suddenly she remembered the hall, the row of guests, and her own ringing laughter. So that was how they had felt…

In the evening the musician gathered up the shards, said nothing, and only stroked her head.

"Don’t worry. Tomorrow there is a great feast at King Thrushbeard’s castle, and the cooks need a helper. Will you go?"

The princess went. All day she peeled turnips, washed bowls and carried water. In the evening the kind cook gave her a full basket of pies:

"Here, take these home. You worked well today."

The princess was already heading for the door, but she stopped for a moment by the hall where fiddles were playing and guests in silk were whirling around. Once she had danced like that too… And now she stood here in an apron, with a basket of pies.

Just then King Thrushbeard himself came up to her, in a golden crown.

"Will you dance with me?" he asked, and held out his hand.

The princess took fright and jerked away. The basket fell, and the pies went thump-thump-thump across the shining floor. The guests laughed. The princess covered her face with her hands and ran off, down the stairs.

But on the stairs someone caught up with her.

"Wait," said a familiar voice. "Don’t run away."

She raised her eyes. Before her stood King Thrushbeard: the same reddish little beard, the same slightly crooked chin. And in his hand he held a fiddle with a little wooden bird on its neck. The princess gasped: it was him, the fiddler!

"The musician was me," the king said quietly. "The cottage is mine, and the pots, and the baskets. I never wanted to punish you. I wanted you to find out how it feels when people laugh at you."

Tears rolled down the princess’s cheeks.

"Now I know," she whispered. "I’m so ashamed. Before you, and before the fat prince, and the red one, and the long one… Before everyone."

"That is good," smiled Thrushbeard. "I never needed more than that."

He took her by the hand and led her back to the hall. And there by the door stood her father, the king, smiling into his mustache. He had known everything from the very beginning, it turned out.

Later, they say, they even held a wedding. But the guests remembered something else entirely from that evening.

An old servant tripped on the threshold, and nuts spilled from his tray onto the floor, pitter-patter! Somebody snorted. But the princess did not laugh. She was the first to kneel down and gather the nuts, because now she knew very well how much someone else’s laughter stings.