The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories
MacDonald, George, 1824-1905
English
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Below is a summary of The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories
The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories
by George MacDonald
CONTENTS
THE LIGHT PRINCESS
THE GIANT'S HEART
THE GOLDEN KEY
THE LIGHT PRINCESS
I. WHAT! NO CHILDREN?
Once upon a time, so long ago that I have quite forgotten the date,
there lived a king and queen who had no children.
And the king said to himself, "All the queens of my acquaintance have
children, some three, some seven, and some as many as twelve; and my
queen has not one. I feel ill-used." So he made up his mind to be cross
with his wife about it. But she bore it all like a good patient queen
as she was. Then the king grew very cross indeed. But the queen
pretended to take it all as a joke, and a very good one too.
"Why don't you have any daughters, at least?" said he. "I don't say
_sons_; that might be too much to expect."
"I am sure, dear king, I am very sorry," said the queen.
"So you ought to be," retorted the king; "you are not going to make a
virtue of _that_, surely."
But he was not an ill-tempered king, and in any matter of less moment
would have let the queen have her own way with all his heart. This,
however, was an affair of state.
The queen smiled.
"You must have patience with a lady, you know, dear king," said she.
She was, indeed, a very nice queen, and heartily sorry that she could
not oblige the king immediately.
The king tried to have patience, but he succeeded very badly. It was
more than he deserved, therefore, when, at last, the queen gave him a
daughter--as lovely a little princess as ever cried.
II. WON'T I, JUST?
The day drew near when the infant must be christened. The king wrote
all the invitations with his own hand. Of course somebody was
forgotten.
Now it does not generally matter if somebody _is_ forgotten, only you
must mind who. Unfortunately, the king forgot without intending to
forget; and so the chance fell upon the Princess Makemnoit, which was
awkward. For the princess was the king's own sister; and he ought not
to have forgotten her. But she had made herself so disagreeable to the
old king, their father, that he had forgotten her in making his will;
and so it was no wonder that her brother forgot her in writing his
invitations. But poor relations don't do anything to keep you in mind
of them. Why don't they? The king could not see into the garret she
lived in, could he?
She was a sour, spiteful creature. The wrinkles of contempt crossed the
wrinkles of peevishness, and made her face as full of wrinkles as a pat
of butter. If ever a king could be justified in forgetting anybody,
this king was justified in forgetting his sister, even at a
christening. She looked very odd, too. Her forehead was as large as all
the rest of her face, and projected over it like a precipice. When she
was angry her little eyes flashed blue. When she hated anybody, they
shone yellow and green. What they looked like when she loved anybody, I
do not know; for I never heard of her loving anybody but herself, and I
do not think she could have managed that if she had not somehow got
used to herself. But what made it highly imprudent in the king to
forget her was--that she was awfully clever. In fact, she was a witch;
and when she bewitched anybody, he very soon had enough of it; for she
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