A Fairytale

This was written between 11pm to 4am, all in one sitting. I wrote this inspired by a fairytale book from the early 1900s that my dad found in the coat closet. It's not my usual style of writing(which is giving an overabundance of detail). I tried to stay true to the typical fairytale format: the opression of a good-hearted main character, acts of vengeful magic without cause, strange creatures, and weird adventures. Oh yea, and a princess and an unrealistic love story withal.

I want to one day edit this and turn it into a kid's book- huge epic illustrations and shiny pages and everything! And then win a prize it so that it'll have one of those fancy golden stickers on it.

so here goes! It's an easy read, mainly on a kid's level.




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Once upon a time, there was a pretty young girl by the name of Charice A Barnidum, who was the cousin of the princess. In the entire realm, she was the prettiest and the smartest. Her hair was long, shiny, and brunette and her eyes were like fine pearls embedded with emeralds. She could recite all of Hamlet and could understand calculus. The Princess, who was plain and only liked to flirt with boys and look at her dresses all day long, was sore jealous of Charice. She proposed that Charice wanted to take her place one day as queen, because of her great beauty and intellect. Charice, however, was too kind and humble to wish anything ill on the Princess.

So, one find day at the beginning of spring, while Charice was picking wild flowers in the meadow, the princess sent a messenger to invite her to ride horses in the afternoon. When the messenger relayed the proposal to Charice, she was absolutely delighted and followed him back to the castle.

“Dear Charice, how happy I am to see you!” Said the Princess, with a fictitious smile, “pick any horse you like, but I am riding the white stallion.” She knew Charice was clumsy, so earlier she hired a witch to cast a spell on all the horses except for the white stallion, causing any person riding them to fall off and broke their neck. The spell would wear off in one day. Charice picked a lovely painted mare and thus they began their ride through the countryside. As they came upon a quiet creek, Charice’s horse stumbled and she lost her balance, falling off and breaking her neck. Satisfied, the Princess left her there alone and in dire pain. Charice cried so loudly that all the forests nymphs heard, and emerged from the trees to see what was making such a fuss. When the Nymph Queen saw Charice lying in the creek bank with a broken neck, she felt great compassion for her plight and ordered all the nymphs to help carry the girl to a tree castle deep in the forest. She was put in a huge, soft bed and given cheesecake and hot cocoa while they used nymph magic to heal her. When she was fully recovered and had no pain left, the Nymph Queen entered into her room.

“Thank you so very much, Your Majesty Nymph!” Charice, exclaimed, sitting up in the bed, “what can I ever do you repay you?”

“First,” replied the Queen, very curious, “tell me how you came to be in such the position you were left alone in by the creek?”

“I was taking a ride with my cousin, The Princess, when my horse faltered and I broke my neck falling down,” answered Charice.

“And she left you alone to die?”

“I suppose she went to find help…” Charice said unsure of her own answer. In her heart she couldn’t tell.

“This seems very suspicious. One of my squirrel subjects said he saw a witch casting spells on the horses at the castle.” The Nymph Queen said, very sorry. Charice was shocked to hear this and wondered who would do such a thing. The Queen continued. “My dear son is trapped by that same witch, and this is what you can do to repay me: call on your cousin the Princess and tell her to make the king find all the witches in land. My Squirrel subject will come with you to identify the witch. Take these beads,” she gave Charice a necklace of pearls, “and put them around the witch’s neck. Ask her how to free my son, and you can also ask her why she casts spells on the horses. This necklace will prevent her from telling any lie.”

With the pearl necklace and the squirrel named Earl, Charice left the tree castle and was sure she would miss the Nymph Queen, for she was very kind. Earl and Charice made a quick journey back to the castle, becoming very good friends along the way.

While Charice had been residing at the Nymph Queen’s tree castle, the Princess had told everyone that Charice had died. They had all loved Charice very much, so there was a great and solemn funeral held for her. All the people in the whole country were mourning for her death.

Naturally, it was a great and joyous surprise when Charice entered the castle with Earl. Charice’s mother and father were there and consumed her with gleeful hugs and kisses, extremely happy to find that there daughter was not dead. The King and Queen then declared a huge feast in her honour. The Princess was entirely discontented and fainted from frustration while Charice was telling of her adventure and her new quest. Charice attended to her and said, “My dear cousin, Princess, you must ask your father the King to gather all the witches in the land so that Earl may recognize the one who had trapped the Nymph Queen’s son and caused me to break my neck by her spells. O, will you?” Not wanting to let Charice think she was guilty of hiring the witch, she consented and asked her Father. The King made a royal decree to catch all the witches, so in three months they had all been captured. They were all lined up in the great throne room, and Earl walked about trying to pick out the witch he had seen. Finally he spotted her, the third to the last in line. Charice, with much anticipation, put the pearl necklace around her neck and asked, “Witch, where have you trapped the Nymph Queen’s son?”

“In a small box on the top of Mount Cumulous, which is in the highest clouds over the desert,” she replied, with a voice like sand paper.

“How can we get there and take him back?” asked Charice.

“You must ride on the back of a Giant Red Swan over the vast desert until you see large ominous blue clouds. You must ride night and day for a week without stopping.” She began to cackle like a roll of bubble wrap being viciously twisted, “but there are not any Giant Red Swans alive anymore! They are extinct!” The whole congregation was saddened at this, because the Nymph Queen had been so kind to Charice and wanted her son back very much. Charice then decided to ask her other question; “Why did you cast spells on the horses which caused me to break my neck?”

The Princess did not want anyone to know that she had hired the witch to hurt Charice, so she snuck up behind the witch and unlatched the pearls, which she deftly slipped away without anyone noticing. Now that the witch could lie, she blamed it on the Nymph Queen because she was afraid the princess would have her beheaded if she ratted her out. Charice was very confused, but believed her because she did not know the pearls were gone. Earl, however, noticed.

“Look!” he shouted, pointing at the Princess, who was trying to sneak away. “She has the pearls!”

“Cousin!” Charice exclaimed, astonished. The princess stopped, caught red-handed. The King, who had been watching the whole ordeal, was of course very unhappy with his daughter. “What have you done?” he shouted. Quickly, she thought up a seemingly viable excuse.

“I…thought they were mine!” she said, thoroughly embarrassed. This was a stupid answer and the King sighed with exasperation. The pearl necklace was put back on the witch, who told of the Princess’ plan. Charice was very crushed that her beloved cousin would do such a thing, but relieved that it had not really been the Nymph Queen. As punishment, the King ordered that the Princess be turned into a Giant Red Swan, and all the witches that had been captured worked together to do so. The witch which had trapped the Prince was very dispondant and wished to undo the Red Swan spell and keep her Nymph Prince(for she was in love with him and kept him in a box for her pleasure), but she was put in a jail cell and forced to wear anti-magic gloves.

Meanwhile, Charice and Earl mounted the Princess, who was now a Giant Red Swan, and took off. It took an entire week just like the witch had said, but they had taken enough food for the journey. The Princess complained the whole way.

When they arrived the trio was immediately confronted with a thousand tiny Cyclopes, the leader of which wore a large turquoise Tricorne hat. Charice slipped the pearl necklace around his neck and asked, “What should we do to defeat you?”

“Stab me in the eye and we all will die.” So, Earl took a particularly pointy acorn which he had packed and stabbed the leader’s eye, and they all died instantly.

They climbed on up Mount Cumulous, very tired but excited (except for the Princess). After 3 days, they found the box. It was shut tight and they had forgotten to ask the witch what to do once they found the box. Once again they mounted the Princess, who was now the Giant Red Swan, and flew for a week back, bringing the box before the witch. Putting the pearl necklace around her neck, Charice asked, “What do we do to open the box?”

“Only the Nymph Prince’s true love can open it. There is a latch on the side which you must kiss three times.” For the heck of it (and secretly hoping it to be so in her heart), Charice kissed the latch three times. They all waited for something to happen. Nothing did.

“I guess I am not his true love,” she said sadly. The King then decreed that all the maidens in the land, rich and poor, ugly and beautiful, should kiss the box three times. It took a month to go through all the ladies, and no one was able to open it with her kisses. Then Charice remembered the the Princess was still a Giant Red Swan, now living in the garden. She had become very humble and sweet and even tried to read Hamlet, even though it is hard for a giant red swan to read such comparatively small books. Charice went to the King and said, “I think she has been punished long enough, let the princess kiss the box.” So the King consented, because he loved and missed his daughter, and had all the witches change her back. She then proceeded to kiss the box three times as directed. It opened with great flare and panache to reveal a tall and handsome Nymph Prince. When they saw each other, the two fell in deep and passionate love. All were very happy for the two, especially the Nymph Queen, who had her beloved son back. The Prince and the Princess married between the castle and the forest, uniting the two kingdoms. Charice was happy for her, too, although she had no one to love herself- until one day in summer, when Earl came to her and confessed that he was really a rich merchant turned into a squirrel by an evil genie long ago. She was very surprised and asked how he might be changed back.

“With a kiss,” He said, “I was very nervous to ask you because ladies do not kiss squirrels.” It was sort of awkward, but Charice kissed him willingly and he immediately transformed into a tall and handsome young man. They remained best friends for a while and eventually fell in love and got married between the castle and the forest, just like the Prince and Princess. All of them went on horse rides regularly together, and that old witch wore the pearl necklace and anti-magic gloves for the rest of her life, working as a servant to the Nymph Queen.

Thus, they lived happily ever after.


FIN