The girl in the dress of Autumn Leaves

Once upon a time there was a girl called Anna-Nanna who wore a dress made from Autumn leaves.

 

Her evil step mother made her wear it, you see, because she didn’t want to spend any money on clothes for her even though she dressed her own daughters in the finest silks and satins; she even made poor Anna- Nanna walk about barefoot because she was too mean to buy her a pair of shoes.

 

But then, one day, there was strong Autumn wind and it caught hold of Anna-Nannas dress and blew her up in the air whirling her round just like an Autumn leaf.

 

It blew her over trees and rooftops; over hills and valleys and over villages and towns until it put her down again in the palace of a king.

 

“And who might you be?”, asked the king as Anna-Nanna landed in front of him.

 

“I am Anna-Nanna, your Majesty”, replied the girl, curtseying.

 

“Well perhaps you are just the one who can help me”, the king said, happily.

 

Then he told Anna-Nanna that his daughter, the Princess Willowum had not smiled for two whole years and that he was afraid she would never smile again.

 

“Don’t worry”, said Anna Nanna to the king, “I’m sure I can make your daughter smile”.

 

And so Anna-Nanna was taken to see the kings daughter and, first of all, she tried doing acrobatics for Princess Willowum, leaping and tumbling and doing cartwheels but the Princess only sighed and said,

 

“I have tumblers and acrobats already”.

 

So then Anna-Nanna tried juggling to cheer the princess up, picking up a pair of apples that were lying beneath an apple tree nearby and juggling them while balancing a third one on her head but, though she juggled very well, the Princess just sighed again, saying,

 

“I have jugglers already”.

 

So then Anna-Nanna tried singing to the Princess. She sang a happy song all about her and her dress of Autumn leaves but this did not cheer the princess up either; she just sighed and said,

 

“I have singers already and musicians too”.

 

Anna-Nanna thought for a moment and then, curtseying, she asked the Princess, “Well, begging your pardon, your royal highness but what don’t you have?”.

 

“I don’t have any friends”, said the princess, sadly.

 

So Anna-Nanna said that she would be the princess’s friend and this made the Princess Willowum smile a big, beaming smile that spread right across her freckled face and the king was so happy when he saw his daughter smile that he insisted on Anna-Nanna staying in the palace and he gave her a dress made of golden leaves and golden shoes to wear upon her feet.

 

But then Anna-Nanna’s evil stepmother heard what had happened to her and she was very jealous and went to the royal palace and protested that she was Anna-Nanna’s legal and rightful guardian and that Anna-Nanna must come home with her.

 

Anna-Nanna pleaded with the king not to send her home with her stepmother and Princess Willowum pleaded with him too but the King said that, according to the law, he must.

 

“But my stepmother is an evil and cruel woman”, said Anna Nana, “I’ll prove it to you, just let me ask her to tell you what she does with children”.

 

“Very well”, said the king, “You may if you please”.

 

Then Anna-Nanna went over to her stepmother and she said, in a low voice, “The king would like to know how you clean rugs”.

 

“Clean rugs?”, asked her Stepmother, confused, but then she answered at the top of her voice to the king, “Why I hang them up outside and I beat them with a carpet beater, of course”.

 

Hearing this and thinking that the stepmother had just said that she hung children up and beat them with carpet beaters, the king was very angry with her and he told Anna-Nanna that not only would he not hand her over to her step mother but that he would send her stepmother to jail.

 

“Wait”, said Anna-Nanna to the king, “First let me ask her how many years she would like to spend in jail”.

 

“Very well”, said the king.

 

Then Anna-Nanna went over to her step mother again and she said, in a low voice, “The king would like to reward you and your daughters with bags of gold but he would like to know how many you would like”.

 

“Bags of gold!”, replied the mother smiling and her eyes lighting up like two gold coins, happy at the thought of becoming very rich then, at the top of her voice, she said to the king, “I’d like a hundred for me and a hundred for each of my daughters too”.

 

“Oh you would, would you?”, said the king, “Very well, that is what you shall have”.

 

Then, much to the wicked stepmothers dismay, the king ordered his guards to arrest them and lock them in his dungeons  for a hundred years.

 

Anna-Nanna was so happy to be free at last from her wicked stepmother, then the king decreed that, because Anna-Nanna now had no legal guardian, he should adopt her as his daughter and so Anna-Nanna became a princess and she lived, with the king and her new sister, princess Willowum, happily ever after.