RECAPITULATION
 
 

Princess Sara, the proud and beautiful only child of King Wilhelm and Queen Amalia had been  presented with a stark choice by the Good (?) Fairy.  The handsome Prince Adelbert had been prevented by this malicious fairy from seeing the Princess's true loveliness, thus ensuring that her desperate  love for him was not returned.  Her heart had been broken by his indifference and she had taken to her bed and begun to waste away.

The fairy had promised to take away the Prince's blindness to her loveliness,  on condition she wander the world naked and alone, never entering human habitations and sleeping under the stars,  drenched by the rain,  battered by the fiercest winds  and burnt by the sun.  She was to agree to subject herself to a life of torment and the direst poverty for one year and one day.

Since death was the only future she saw for herself without her passionate love being reciprocated, she had divested herself of clothes and, wearing nothing save a fairy ring  possessing magical properties,  had immediately left her life of comfort and pampered security, eagerly embracing an existence of harsh deprivation, discomfort and terrible pain, in order that she might ultimately find the love she craved.

Much kindness had been shown to her,  not only by the animal kingdom, but also by    many friendly peasant folk who had been happy to share their simple food with the ethereally lovely  naked girl, with her wild, disordered hair,  deeply tanned skin and clear  blue eyes.  Few ventured to  ask  her why she was leading such  a life, and she rarely volunteered to tell them.  The birds and animals knew, though,  and she had learned to understand their speech, feeling herself surrounded by their sympathy and encouragement as she slowly made her way to winter in the far south, far from the harsh winters of her own kingdom and where she might be able to survive without shelter for her nakedness.

Once she had become inured to the changed conditions  she now lived in,  and in particular when her previously tender little feet had become toughened by walking over all manner of rugged surfaces, she had learned live by her own efforts.  The discovery of her own self-sufficiency had given her great happiness - such as she had never felt before.  The realisation that she did not need an army of servants to provide for her, but could provide for herself was a source of great pride, if no great surprise,  to a young lady who had never,  in any case, had a low estimation of her abilities.

One cause of sorrow was the absence of her childhood friend Martha, with whom she had briefly quarrelled shortly before the start of her misfortunes.  One morning, when  in a bad temper after waking from a bad dream, the angry Princess had taken advantage of her superior rank to strip her friend naked and force her to  parade herself before the entire court in this state.

Often she would ask herself if her year-long ordeal might perhaps, be a punishment for her wicked treatment of the poor girl, but then she recalled that she had soon repented of her cruelty and persuaded her father to raise the peasant girl to noble rank.  And she had dreamt of this exile long before the quarrel, which was in any case the result of  mental  distress  caused by her prophetically vivid dream.

No!  It must be something else that had caused her to be singled out for these atrocious hardships, but, in any case, she had no choice but to endure them.  She did miss Martha, though.

One day she was given work at a small travelling circus and her heart had been pierced with agony at the plight of a black panther, which she had released  and with which she had then run away.  She had named the animal after her best friend and,  shortly after so doing,  she had fainted.  When she came to her senses, a naked Martha was standing over her.

"Where is the lovely panther?  And how on Earth do you come to be here?"

Martha knelt down beside her friend and kissed her.

"I was the caged beast, Sara, my darling friend and rescuer!  Soon after you left us all,  I decided to follow you,  keep you company and protect you from harm as I always have.   I was so angry when that creature said that you did not deserve my friendship!  How dared she say such a wicked thing about you? You,  above all,  deserve nothing but the best of everything!

"I was only a few days away from the Palace when that dreadful Fairy appeared and  turned me into a wild animal.  She told me I would never regain my true form unless and until someone called me by my name, and who would ever be likely to do that?  She also said that, in the  event that  I did regain human form, the one responsible was to have me as his or her slave for ever.  So, I am at your disposal!"

She continued to tell her story.

"I still wanted to be near you, my precious friend and followed behind you.  As a big cat, I could track you by your scent.  How it distressed me to see the marks left by your poor torn and bleeding feet!  I see how you have got over your physical weakness!  You look truly magnificent now - so strong and brown after being in the sun so long!

" One day, I was captured by the show people and forced to perform tricks for the public.  They starved and beat me to force me to perform for those stupid cruel people who get pleasure from the captivity of their fellow creatures.  It was the most horrible time and I was  about to abandon hope when you turned up.  And you decided to name me by my own name and here I am before you, my mistress!"

The Princess returned her friend's kiss.  Then, after thinking a few seconds, she replied.

"My first and last act as your mistress is to release you and restore you to your rightful rank as a free and noble woman! And now,  you must return home and marry Baron Schroder as soon as possible.  As you see, I am doing fine on my own!  I have missed you and will miss you again after you have left me, but I can and must face this year without either you or anyone else to help me.

"Although I was thinking the other day what great fun it would be to be doing this journey in company with you,  now that you are with me, I can see that I was wrong to desire this. I must bear my own burdens and fight my own battles, without your aid, my love.   Knowing that  I have been able to restore you to your true nature will be sufficient comfort in the months ahead, and those months will pass soon enough!"

Martha bit her lip in order to stop herself crying, but the effort was unsuccessful and soon both girls were weeping, their arms wrapped around each other and their mingled tears running down their faces as they prepared to go their own separate ways again.  Martha could see the sense of her beloved friend's words.  She marvelled at how the formerly frail young Princess had matured and grown in strength in a few short weeks.  She could leave her to fend for herself knowing that her friend would survive and return in triumph to her own people and a life with the Prince Adelbert on the appointed day.

Finally,  both dried their eyes.

Sara said "We must find some clothes for you, my love and earn some money to pay for your return home.  I hope you can stand up to a bit of extremely hard work - it's the only sort of work there is in these parts! Then it must be goodbye for eleven months.  Think what a celebration there will be when I return!  What fine clothes we will both wear - although I am getting almost to like the way I am now, even though it is a great and grievous wrong for one of my rank and quality to be exhibited like this for all the world to see!  It's a wrong which that detestable Fairy will pay for.  If it takes me the rest of my life, I will fix her !"

The Fairy heard all this and  again raged at the defiance of this conceited and self confident young woman.  She was also somewhat afraid, seeing that the Princess's sufferings were serving only to strengthen her, not only physically and mentally, but in other and more mystical ways.  Her rapport with the birds and animals of the forest was a sign of this.  Could she one day  have powers as strong as her own?