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The Golden Branch
by
Instantly the lady opened her lustrous eyes, and saw the Eagle hovering near.
‘Ah! stay, dear love, stay,’ she cried. But the Eagle, uttering a dolorous cry, fluttered his broad wings and disappeared. Then the lady turned to Prince Curlicue, and said:
‘I know that it is to you I owe my deliverance from an enchantment which has held me for two hundred years. If there is anything that I can do for you in return, you have only to tell me, and all my fairy power shall be used to make you happy.’
‘Madam,’ said Prince Curlicue, ‘I wish to be allowed to restore your beloved Florimond to his natural form, since I cannot forget the tears you shed for him.’
‘That is very amiable of you, dear Prince,’ said the Fairy, ‘but it is reserved for another person to do that. I cannot explain more at present. But is there nothing you wish for yourself?’
‘Madam,’ cried the Prince, flinging himself down at her feet, ‘only look at my ugliness. I am called Curlicue, and am an object of derision; I entreat you to make me less ridiculous.’
‘Rise, Prince,’ said the Fairy, touching him with the Golden Branch. ‘Be as accomplished as you are handsome, and take the name of Prince Peerless, since that is the only title which will suit you now.’
Silent from joy, the Prince kissed her hand to express his thanks, and when he rose and saw his new reflection in the mirrors which surrounded him, he understood that Curlicue was indeed gone for ever.
‘How I wish,’ said the Fairy, ‘that I dared to tell you what is in store for you, and warn you of the traps which lie in your path, but I must not. Fly from the tower, Prince, and remember that the Fairy Douceline will be your friend always.’
When she had finished speaking, the Prince, to his great astonishment, found himself no longer in the tower, but set down in a thick forest at least a hundred leagues away from it. And there we must leave him for the present, and see what was happening elsewhere.
When the guards found that the Prince did not ask for his supper as usual, they went into his room, and not finding him there, were very much alarmed, and searched the tower from turret to dungeon, but without success. Knowing that the King would certainly have their heads cut off for allowing the Prince to escape, they then agreed to say that he was ill, and after making the smallest among them look as much like Prince Curlicue as possible, they put him into his bed and sent to inform the King.
King Grumpy was quite delighted to hear that his son was ill, for he thought that he would all the sooner be brought to do as he wished, and marry the Princess. So he sent back to the guards to say that the Prince was to be treated as severely as before, which was just what they had hoped he would say. In the meantime the Princess Cabbage-Stalk had reached the palace, travelling in a litter.
King Grumpy went out to meet her, but when he saw her, with a skin like a tortoise’s, her thick eyebrows meeting above her large nose, and her mouth from ear to ear, he could not help crying out:
‘Well, I must say Curlicue is ugly enough, but I don’t think YOU need have thought twice before consenting to marry him.’
‘Sire,’ she replied, ‘I know too well what I am like to be hurt by what you say, but I assure you that I have no wish to marry your son I had rather be called Princess Cabbage-Stalk than Queen Curlicue.’
This made King Grumpy very angry.
‘Your father has sent you here to marry my son,’ he said, ‘and you may be sure that I am not going to offend him by altering his arrangements.’ So the poor Princess was sent away in disgrace to her own apartments, and the ladies who attended upon her were charged to bring her to a better mind.