The Potter Princess

The Potter Princess

Once upon a time, in a glamorous palace, lived a Princess. In fact, she lived rather well. All day she would lay on her sofa and read fairy tales. If  in these fairy tales, she happened upon sorrowful or spooky places, the Princess was distressed. When this occurred, the royal cook made the favoured delicacy of all princesses for her – chocolate in the softest of white marshmallows. After such a treat, the Princess calmed and could read on.

All was well, except the King, the Princess’s father, had decided that it was time to find his daughters husbands, starting with the oldest, the Princess herself. He began hosting balls in the courtyard of the palace. Princes from all four corners of the world would gather, eat, drink, dance, and have boring conversations. After the appropriate amount of time, they would ask for the hand of the Princess, and she would refuse them. Her father would be angry; her sisters would pout - they were tired of waiting their turn. The royal cook had to send for help in the kitchen, as he couldn’t manage making that many marshmallow-covered chocolates on his own.

All the Princess wanted, though, was for her romance to happen as it did in the fairy tales. First, a dragon would kidnap her and imprison her in a tower. Then a courageous knight, in love with her portrait, would defeat the dragon and free the Princess. Then they would run so fast that no one could catch them. And only after this adventure would they marry and live happily ever after. This was what the Princess imagined, although both dragons and brave knights probably existed exclusively in fairy tales. But didn’t love, portraits and other such romantic notions have to exist?

One day a Prince arrived at the castle, one unlike any of the others. He serenaded her, singing of her beauty, reciting her poems of falling in love with her portrait, and bringing her armfuls of flowers each day. The Princess was over the moon with joy, but she still wanted more and asked him to escape with her. Honestly, there was no need to escape: he was a wealthy prince of noble blood, and the King couldn’t wait for him to become his son-in-law, as soon as possible. But the Prince agreed, much to the Princess’s delight, that they certainly must escape!

One day, while the Prince was once again reciting his poems about her, the Princess shyly asked him about their plan. The Prince slapped himself on the forehead.

“Of course! Our escape!”

On the other side of the paper with his poems, he scribbled a map and handed it to the Princess.

“When?” clarified the Princess, breathless with excitement.

“Tomorrow at dawn!” decided the Prince.

She cried out – there was little time left – and, to the dismay of the Prince, ran away to get ready to escape. She approached the matter seriously: she packed a purse with some coins, bundled up marshmallow-covered chocolates, prepared her simplest dress and her sturdiest shoes. At sunrise the Princess set out for their meeting place, with the page of poem in hand.

It was unfortunate that she had been shy and had not told him of her own escape plan! It was even worse that she had not drawn the map herself. The Prince had drawn their meeting place so confusingly, especially some ill-fated ruins that the Princess couldn’t find (or perhaps they were boulders?), where, according to the plan, a carriage was supposed to be waiting for her. However, instead of immediately turning back home, the Princess continued to walk and walk along unfamiliar deserted roads, through woods and meadows. She hoped to run into the ruins or the carriage with the Prince, who was probably searching for her. Finally, she grew tired, and realized that she was lost, and was ready to be found by just about anyone, perhaps a knight or her father the King. She would have even been pleased with a farm wagon. A farmer, for some gold coins, would drive her to the palace. Alas, the Princess didn’t encounter anyone on the road, and couldn’t remember her way back. Sitting somewhere on her own would be foolish. The only thing left for her to do was to go forth in hopes of encountering someone or catching a glimpse of life somewhere. Later in the evening, by which time she had used up all her strength, the Princess noticed a trickle of smoke behind a field in the distance. Fortunately, the smoke was coming from the chimney of a farmer’s house.

The Princess knocked on the door. It was opened by a young, disheveled woman with a wailing infant in her arms. Two more squealing children clung to her skirts. The farmer woman snapped crossly that everyone had gone to the market for the whole week and taken everything with them, so she had nothing to sell, and slammed the door shut.

The Princess had read that princes should not despair under any circumstances. What princesses should do, the books hadn’t said, but she assumed that it was the same as princes. Despite this, she broke down and started to cry – of despair, it seemed.

The woman flung open the door, poured the daily dishwater outside, and, astonished that the young girl was still there, invited her into the house. The Princess quickly wiped her tears.

The farmer woman told the Princess of her troubles: her husband, his brothers and both her in-laws had gone to the market, and hadn’t taken her or the children, because all three had gotten sick at the same time. She was out of patience and completely fed up. The Princess, blushing, told her own story: she had planned to escape with the best Prince in the world, but had gotten lost and wanted to go back to her castle.

“Where this castle is, I don’t know,” shrugged the farmer woman, “but my husband will return in a week, and he’ll take you to town, someone there might know.”