The Magic Book

Once upon a time there was a little girl with long blond hair who lived on a little farm with her father and mother and three laying hens, a pair of goats, and a little cow.   The little girl churned the butter, and collected the eggs, and took them down to the market to sell them for her mother, who was going to have a new baby, and could not make the long walk anymore.  

The little girl was worried about this new baby.  It made her mother tired, and and her father worried, and her bed had been pushed up against the other wall so a cradle could sit in the place where her bed used to be. 

"Oh, I don't want a baby sister, and I don't want a baby brother! I want to be the only person who gets loved by my mother!" she sang darkly.   

But it is very dangerous to say such things out loud, because in the branches above her perched a crow.  Not just any crow, but a crow with a spell on it.  The crow's name was Demetrius, and when he so chose, he could turn into a tall, dark man with a hooked nose and skinny, stick-out elbows. Demetrius was the steward of the king and queen who held this country, and he had been sent on mission- to find a little girl.  

He was tasked to find a little girl because the young princess, the only child of the king and queen, had died of a pox, and the queen was so wretched with grief that the king ordered his steward to go out and find a proxy for her.  A little girl, no older than nine, no younger than seven, with long blond hair, to take his daughter's place.  

At first, the steward had tried to take an orphaned child, but the king, upon seeing the girls, sent them all away for being too young or too old, or too fat or too thin, or having hair too red, or too brown, or too fair.   The king told him that none of the orphans were acceptable, and sent out an order to the kingdom, offering a sum of money in exchange for the right little girl, and families flocked to them, offering their children, and they were all rejected. 

"The child I seek is in this kingdom, and her parents are hiding her," the king had said, "Go, and search every hovel and every manor, and bring back any child you find likely.  You can pay the family one gold coin for every inch the girl is tall," 

And so the steward transformed into a crow and went on his search, and on his search, he found the little girl, who had not appeared when the announcement had gone out, and heard her sing her sad, angry song, and he looked upon her heart shaped face, and her honey colored hair, and knew she was the child the king sought. He leapt from the tree and transformed into a man before her, and she screamed.   

"Don't be afraid, my princess," he said bowing to her.  

"I am not a princess," she said "I am the farmer's daughter who lives in the house with the twin goats,"  

"Ah! But you could be a princess! I heard you singing, that you want to be the only person your mother gets to love?"  said the crow-man. 

"Yes," said the little girl, "But my mother is having a new baby," 

"Well that certainly won't do.  How dreadful of her, to have another baby, when she already has such a perfect little girl," said the steward, "I have the most brilliant idea! You know the queen?" 

"Yes, I  know the queen," said the child. 

"Then you know how terribly sad the queen has been since her daughter, who was just your size, and whom you favor, died?"  

"That was very sad," agreed the girl. 

"And you know, of course, that the queen can bear no more children?" said the steward. 

"I have heard such things," said the child. 

"Well, she has sent me, to find a new little girl for her to love.  To be a princess.  And since the queen can have no more children, you will be her only child, and she will love you best," said the crafty crow-man, "So what do you say, my pet?" 

The girl loved her mother, but she was angry and jealous in the white-hot way that only children can be, and she said, "I say yes! Please, take me to the queen at once!" 

And the steward swept her away to the castle, and presented her to the king and queen, who wept with joy and held her tightly, and said she was their own now.   

***

Now, the business with the girl's parents had to be dealt with.  So the steward went to the grave digger's shack and inquired about finding a body.  

"I need a little girl, yay high, with long hair," he told the grave digger. And the grave digger had just the corpse- a child who had fallen into a pig pen.  She was the right size, but so trampled that her face could not be distinguished.  And the steward wrapped the little wrath in his cloak and went to the house with the twin goats, and when the couple answered the door, he said, 

"I am so sorry, but do you have a little girl?" 

And the couple said they did. 

"It was terrible!" lied the steward, "I was riding my horse, and didn't see her," and he gave them the body of the child from the pig pen.  

And the mother wept.  And the father raged.  And the steward offered his apologies, and left them forty-one gold coins- one for each inch of the stolen girl's height. 

***

After a fortnight, the king and queen decided to hold a party for their new adopted daughter, whom they had renamed Lorelei.  All the lords and ladies of the land came, and all the fairies and good witches came as eel, with gifts for little Lorelei. She was given a necklace of pearls, and a pair of slippers made from rose petals.  She received a bloodhound puppy that had so much loose skin (a promise that he would be a big dog) that he was little more than a pile of wrinkles with eyes and a wet tongue.  She received a carriage made of mirrors, and a magic lantern that never ran out of oil.  But best of all, she received a magic book from  a good witch who lived in the woods. 

"A rare and special book it is, my dear," the old woman said, "IT is a book that writes your future.  Speak your desire, and it will come to pass,"  

***

So the little girl became Princess Lorelei.  And she had everything a little girl could want.  She had a white pony named Ivy, and a wardrobe full of dresses, and a mother and father who did dote on her so extravagantly.  

But princess Lorelei was not happy.  

She never had a moment's peace.  If the queen wasn't with her, a bevy of nursemaids were.  She was not allowed to walk in the woods or go to the village alone. If she asked to collect eggs or churn butter, she was handed a piece of embroidery instead.  

And on top of all that, she missed her mother and father at the farm.  Her mother had probably had the baby by now.  She wondered what the baby looked like, and if he was cute.  She started to think that maybe she had been a bit rash. Maybe she could have shared her mother. 

The princess began to droop. She was sad in the castle.  She refused to eat her meals, even when they offered her sugared strawberries, and  cakes with edible roses on top.  

Doctors came and saw to her.  They let her blood and soaked her in strange smelling baths, and gave her sticky syrups, but nothing helped, and the king and queen feared that she would die.  

"What is wrong, my dear?" the queen asked. 

"I want to go home, to my real parents!" Lorelei wept.  

But the queen became indignant.  She scolded the little girl, "We ARE your real parents!"  

But Lorelei knew they weren't.  And after some time, she remember the magic book that would change her future.  She fetched it from her play room and opened it up.  It told her story, from the time she left her house that fateful day, to sell the eggs for her mother, and stopped at a sentence that read as follows:  

"Princess Lorelei fetched the book from her playroom and sat down to read it," 

Excited, she put the book down and ran around her room.  She jumped on her bed.  Then she ran back to the book and saw that new lines had been written, saying that she had run around her room and jumped upon her bed.  

Lorelei looked at the book and started to talk to it.  

"And then the servant, Nancy, came it and gave the princess a sweet roll and milk," she said, and it was written, and shortly, the door opened and there was Nancy with a roll and  a mug of milk.  

Lorelei had an idea.  

She spoke into the book, 

"Then Princess Lorelei went to sleep in the castle bed, and when she woke up, she was not a princess anymore.  She was back at home in her little bed in the farm with her mother and father, and the new baby was coming, and she was happy to have the baby, and she was never a princess at all," 

And presently she felt very sleepy and crawled into her bed, and when she woke up, it was so.