The Prince with the kindest heart (A fairy tale)

The Red Prince, the Blue Prince and the Yellow Prince all desired to marry the Green Princess and they were constantly competing for her affections by buying her expensive gifts; for example, one time the Yellow Prince bought her a dozen roses and the blue prince, hearing about this brought her a dozen pearls but, when he did this, the Red Prince, wanting to outdo him, brought her a dozen diamonds.

The Green Princess, however, was not swayed by fancy gifts and wanted to know which, out of the three Prince’s was the one with the kindest heart and so, dressing up as an old beggar woman in a green ragged shawl, first she went to the red palace where the red prince lived and, knocking at the door of his palace, asked if he could give her some bread.

But, when she did this, the mean hearted red Prince only told her to go away, threatening that he would have her thrown in jail if she didn’t.

“Hmph”, thought the Green Princess, “He is not kind hearted at all. I shall not marry him”.

And so she went to the blue palace where the blue prince lived and did the same thing, knocking upon his door and begging for bread.

But the blue prince was not kind either and he told her to go away or else he would set his dogs on her.

“Hmph”, the princess thought to herself this time, “He is even worse than the last prince. I shall not marry him”.

And so, sighing, the Princess went to the last of the three Princes, the yellow Prince and knocking upon the door of his yellow palace, just as before, asked if she might have some bread.

To her surprise, however, the Yellow Prince was much kinder than the two other Prince’s and, not only did he give the old woman bread, he invited her to come in and eat at his table and ordered that his cook prepare a wonderful broth for her to eat with the bread.

Now, when he did this, the Green Princess happily threw off her green tattered beggar’s shawl and, putting her arms around the yellow Prince said, “Yes, you are the one that I will marry because you have the kindest heart”.

And, soon after, the yellow Prince and the Green Princess announced that they would be married.

However, this news made the Red Prince and the Blue Prince both very jealous and, together, they conspired to get rid of the Yellow Prince and, inviting him to have supper with them at the blue palace, they put a sleeping drug in his wine and when he had fallen asleep they tied his arms and legs and dropped him down a deep well.

At the bottom of the well however lived a monster that only ate wicked men. It tried to eat the yellow prince but, because his heart was so kind, it spat him back out again in disgust but then the yellow Prince said to the monster, “Carry me up out of this well upon your back and I will take you to two very wicked men”.

And so the monster carried the yellow prince up out of the well upon his back and the Blue Prince and the Red Prince were still standing near to the mouth of the well and, when the monster saw them and smelled the wickedness in their hearts, it dragged them both down into the well with it.

Now the yellow prince went back to the Green Princess and soon after they were married and lived happily together forever.