Kentucky Folktales: Revealing Stories, Truths, and Outright Lies by Mary Hamilton

Author:Mary Hamilton [Hamilton, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Social Science, United States, State & Local, South (AL; AR; FL; GA; KY; LA; MS; NC; SC; TN; VA; WV), Folklore & Mythology
ISBN: 9780813140308
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2012-05-22T00:00:00+00:00

THE PRINCESS WHO COULD NOT CRY

A long time ago there once lived a princess who could not cry. Her mother, the queen, said, “Darling, that you cannot cry would not matter if you didn’t laugh at everything.” The king and queen became so worried about the princess, they offered a huge bag of gold to anyone who could make her cry.

A wise man arrived at the palace with a plan to make the princess cry. “Feed her nothing but bread and water for a full week. She’ll be crying then.”

The queen protested, “Bread and water? I’m afraid she’ll starve. Couldn’t we feed her bread and milk instead?”

“No! Bread and water! You do want her to cry, don’t you?”

The king and queen wanted the princess to cry, so they commanded that she be fed nothing but bread and water for a full week. At the end of the week the queen went to see the princess.

“Hi, Mama, watch this!” The princess kicked her foot, and her shoe sailed off her foot and hit the wall on the far side of the room. “Isn’t that something? My foot’s so skinny my shoe just flies right off! Want to see me do it again?” The princess laughed and laughed.

The queen cried.

And then she commanded the princess’s usual diet be restored.

Another wise man offered to make the princess cry. Now, this wise man had studied all the cultures of the world to learn how to make every ugly face and every ugly sound there was. He was certain he could make the princess cry.

For a full day the wise man was locked into a room with the princess. At the end of the day her parents came to check on her. The princess sat laughing and laughing. The exhausted wise man was sent home.

“Oh, Mama, he was funny. How soon can he come back?” the princess laughed and laughed.

The queen cried.

More wise men tried, and more wise men failed. The princess laughed and laughed. The queen cried and cried. At last every wise man in the world had failed.

In this same kingdom there lived a poor mother and daughter. The mother was ill but could not afford the medicine that could make her well. Most of the time she was too ill to work, but they ate the food from their garden and managed as best they could. The girl was smart. She had heard about the gold to be won from making the princess cry, so she had been thinking about how she could win it. One morning, the daughter said, “Mama, I think I can make the princess cry. And with the gold I could buy your medicine.”

“Oh, honey,” said her mother, “you can’t make the princess cry. All the wise men in the world have tried and failed.”

But the smart girl had an idea. She walked to the kitchen for a knife, and then to their garden for an onion. She put both into a sack, put the sack in her bike basket, climbed on her bicycle, and pedaled to the palace.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.