by Nyakuni » Mon Apr 22, 2019 12:51 am
username: Nyakuni
name: Somnia
gender: m
story: "All-Kinds-of-fur"
There was a king with a sickly wife who promised never to marry another woman unless she was as beautiful as his first. The only one he could find was his own daughter. Horrified, the daughter tried to make a wedding impossible by asking for a dress as gold as the sun, one as silver as the moon, another that sparkled like the stars, and a coat made from the fur of every kind of animal in the kingdom before she would agree. When he managed to provide them, the daughter took them and three golden rings and ran away the night before the wedding.
The woman slept only once she reached the wood of another kingdom, wrapped in the fur coat, but was found by a young king hunting there. She asked the king for pity and he gave her work in his kitchen, where she was called "All-Kinds-of-Fur" because she gave no name. The king held a ball one day and she snuck out to it in her golden dress. The next morning, the cook set her to make soup for the king, and she put the first ring in it. The king found it and questioned the cook and then All-Kinds-of-Fur, but he learned nothing. At the next ball, she dressed in her silver dress and put another ring in the king's soup, and the king again could discover nothing.
When another ball was held, she went in the star dress, and the king slipped a golden ring on her finger without her noticing it and ordered that the last dance go longer than usual. She couldn't get away in time to change and threw her fur coat over her dress before she had to cook the soup. When the king questioned her, he caught her hand, seeing the ring, and when she tried to pull it away, her coat slipped, revealing the dress of stars. The king pulled off the coat, revealing her, and they married.
(I loved this story growing up for the images of the dresses conjured in my mind and the silliness of putting jewelry into soup to get noticed, of all things.)