Once upon a time, there lived a king who had a magic donkey. This donkey was his most priced possession. Every morning pieces of gold would tumble out of its ears.
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After many years of prosperity, a sudden blow fell upon the king in the death of his wife, whom the king loved dearly. But before she died, the queen asked the king to promise that if he should marry again, he would only marry a woman who is more beautiful than the queen herself.
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‘Oh, do not speak to me of marrying,’ sobbed the king; ‘rather let me die with you!’ But the queen only smiled faintly, and turned over on her pillow and passed.
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After several months of grieving, the king finally decided to take a new wife. Remembering a promised he had made to his late wife, the king asked his counselors to find a woman fit to be a queen, who was more beautiful than the late queen.
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The counselors sent envoys far and wide to get portraits of all the most famous beauties of every country. The artists were very busy and did their best, but, alas! Nobody could even pretend that any of the ladies could compare for a moment with the late queen.
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At length, one day, when he had turned away discouraged from a fresh collection of pictures, the king’s eyes fell on his own daughter, and he saw that, if a woman existed on the whole earth more lovely than the queen, this was she! He at once made known what he wishes to marry his own daughter.
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The young princess was terrified upon hearing her father’s decision. That night, when everyone was asleep, she started in a little car drawn by a big sheep, and went to consult her fairy godmother.
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‘I know what you have come to tell me,’ said the fairy, when the princess stepped out of the car; ‘and if you don’t wish to marry him, I will show you how to avoid it. Ask him to give you a dress that exactly matches the sky. It will be impossible for him to get one, so you will be quite safe.’ The girl thanked the fairy and returned home again.
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The next morning, when her father came to see her, she told him that she could give him no answer until he had presented her with a dress the colour of the sky. The king sent for all the weavers and dressmakers in the kingdom, and commanded them to make a robe the colour of the sky. In two days they brought back the dress, which looked as if it had been cut straight out of the heavens! The poor girl was thunderstruck, and did not know what to do; so in the night she harnessed her sheep again, and went in search of her fairy godmother.
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‘The king is cleverer than I thought,’ said the fairy; ‘but tell him you must have a dress of moonbeams.’
And the next day, when the king summoned her into his presence, the girl told him what she wanted.
‘Madam, I can refuse you nothing,’ said the king; and he ordered the dress to be ready in twenty-four hours.
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They set to work with all their might, and by dawn next day, the dress of moonbeams was laid across her bed. The girl, though she could not help admiring its beauty, began to cry, till the fairy, who heard her, came to her help.
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Well, I could not have believed it of him!’ said she; ‘but ask for a dress of sunshine, and I shall be surprised indeed if he manages that!’
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The princess did not feel much faith in the fairy after her two previous failures; but not knowing what else to do, she told her father what she was told.
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The king made no difficulties about it, and even gave his finest rubies and diamonds to ornament the dress, which was so dazzling, when finished, that it could only be looked through smoked glasses!
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When the princess saw it, she pretended that the sight hurt her eyes, and retired to her room, where she found the fairy awaiting her, very much ashamed of herself.
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‘There is only one thing to be done now,’ cried she; ‘you must demand the skin of the donkey he treasures by. It is from that donkey he obtains all his vast riches, and I am sure he will never give it to you.’
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The princess was not so certain; however, she went to the king, and told him she could never marry him till he had given her the donkey’s skin.
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The king was both astonished and grieved at this new request, but did not hesitate at all. The donkey was sacrificed, and the skin laid at the feet of the princess.
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The poor girl, seeing no escape from the fate she cried bitter tears; when, suddenly, the fairy stood before her.
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‘Don’t cry child, all will be well! Wrap yourself in this skin, and leave the palace and go as far as you can. I will look after you. Your dresses and your jewels shall follow you underground, and if you strike the earth whenever you need anything, you will have it at once. But go quickly: you have no time to lose.’
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So the princess clothed herself in the donkey’s skin, and slipped from the palace without being seen by anyone.
The King searched near and far for her, but the fairy’s magic protected her so she couldn’t be found.
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The princess walked on a long, long way, trying to find some one who would take her in, and let her work for them; but though the cottagers, whose houses she passed, gave her food from charity, the donkey’s skin was so dirty they would not allow her to enter their houses.
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Tired and disheartened at her bad luck, she was wandering, one day, past the gate of a farmyard, located just outside the walls of a large town, when she heard a voice calling to her. She turned and saw the farmer’s wife standing among her turkeys, and making signs to her to come in.
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‘I want a girl to wash the dishes and feed the turkeys, and clean out the pig-sty,’ said the women, ‘and, to judge by your dirty clothes, you would not be too fine for the work.’
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The girl accepted her offer with joy, and she was at once set to work in a corner of the kitchen. Although the other servants made fun of her because of her dirty donkey skin, they grew fond of her because she was such a hard worker.
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One day the princess was sitting on the banks of a stream bewailing her wretched lot, when she suddenly caught sight of herself in the water. The donkey’s head, which was drawn right over like a hood, concealed her hair and part of her face and the filthy matted skin covered her whole body. It was the first time she had seen herself as other people saw her, and she was really embarrassed. Then she threw off her disguise and jumped into the water, taking a bath, till she shone like ivory. When it was time to go back to the farm, she was forced to put on the skin, which disguised her.
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However, she remembered that she still had beautiful gowns and remembering what the fairy had told her, she stamped on the ground, and instantly the dress like the sky lay across her tiny bed. The princess put on the dress and combed her hair. When she had done, she was so pleased with herself that she determined never to let a chance pass of putting on her splendid clothes, even if she had to wear them in the fields, with no one to admire her but the sheep and turkeys.
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Now the farm belonged to the neighboring king, and, one holiday, when ‘Donkey Skin’ (as they had nicknamed the princess) had locked the door of her room and clothed herself in her dress of sunshine, the king’s son rode through the gate, and asked if he might come and rest himself a little after hunting. Some food and milk were set before him in the garden, and when he felt rested he got up, and began to explore the house, which was famous throughout the whole kingdom for its age and beauty. He opened one door after the other, admiring the old rooms, when he came to a handle that would not turn. He stooped and peeped through the keyhole to see what was inside, and was greatly astonished at beholding a beautiful girl, clad in a dress so dazzling that he could hardly look at it.
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The young prince also witnessed when the young beautiful maiden threw on an ugly dirty donkey skin to conceal all of her beauty.
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All night long he couldn’t sleep, and awoke the next morning in a high fever. No doctors in the kingdom could cure the young prince. At last they told the queen that some secret sorrow must be at the bottom of all this, and she threw herself on her knees beside her son’s bed, and implored him to confide his trouble to her. If it was ambition to be king, his father would gladly resign the cares of the crown, and suffer him to reign in his stead; or, if it was love, everything should be sacrificed to get for him the wife he desired, even if she were daughter of a king with whom the country was at war at present!
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‘Well, then,’ replied the prince, ‘I will tell you the only thing that will cure me —a cake made by the hand of “Donkey Skin.” ‘
‘Donkey Skin?’ exclaimed the queen, who thought her son had gone mad; ‘and who or what is that?’
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‘Madam,’ answered one of the attendants present, who had been with the prince at the farm, ‘”Donkey Skin” is, next to the wolf, the most disgusting creature on the face of the earth. She is a girl who wears a black, greasy skin.
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‘Never mind,’ said the queen; ‘my son seems to have eaten some of her pastry. It is the whim of a sick man, no doubt; but send at once and let her bake a cake.’
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Upon receiving the queen’s command, Donkey Skin flung off the dirty skin, washed herself from head to foot, and put on a skirt and bodice of shining silver. Then, locking herself into her room, she took the richest cream, the finest flour, and the freshest eggs on the farm, and set about making her cake.
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As she was stirring the mixture in the saucepan a ring that she sometimes wore in secret slipped from her finger and fell into the dough. Soon the cake was ready to be put in the oven. When it was nice and brown she took off her dress and put on her dirty skin, and gave the cake to the messenger, asking at the same time for news of the prince. But the page turned his head aside, and would not even care to answer.
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The prince ate the cake and found the ring. Then he set his mind to find how he was to see the owner—for even he did not dare to confess that he had only beheld ‘Donkey Skin’ through a keyhole. All this worry brought back the fever, and the doctors, not knowing what else to say, informed the queen that her son was simply dying of love. The queen, stricken with horror, rushed into the king’s presence with the news, and together they hastened to their son’s bedside.
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‘My boy, my dear boy!’ cried the king, ‘who is it you want to marry? We will give her to you for a bride; even if she is the humblest of our slaves. What is there in the whole world that we would not do for you?’
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The prince, moved to tears at these words, drew the ring, which was an emerald of the purest water, from under his pillow.
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‘Ah, dear father and mother, let this be a proof that she whom I love is no peasant girl. The finger which that ring fits has never been thickened by hard work. I will marry no other.’
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The king and queen examined the tiny ring very closely, and agreed, with their son, that the wearer could be no mere farm girl. Then the king went out and ordered heralds and trumpeters to go through the town, summoning every maiden to the palace. And she whom the ring fitted would some day be queen.
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First came all the princesses, then all the duchesses’ daughters, and so on, in proper order. But not one of them could slip the ring over the tip of her finger, to the great joy of the prince, whom excitement was fast curing. At last, when the high-born damsels had failed, the shop-girls and chambermaids took their turn; but with no better fortune.
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‘There is not a woman left, your Highness,’ said the chamberlain; but the prince waved him aside.
‘Have you sent for “Donkey Skin,” who made me the cake?’ asked he, and the courtiers began to laugh, and replied that they would not have dared to introduce so dirty a creature into the palace.
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‘Let someone go for her at once,’ ordered the king. ‘I commanded the presence of every maiden, high or low, and I meant it.’
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The princess had heard the trumpets and the proclamations, and knew quite well that her ring was at the bottom of it all. She, too, had fallen in love with the prince in the brief glimpse she had had of him. She had dressed herself with great care, putting on the garment of moonlight. But when they began calling to her to come down, she hastily covered herself with her donkey-skin and announced she was ready to present herself before his Highness. She was taken straight into the hall, where the prince was awaiting her, but at the sight of the donkey-skin his heart sank. Had he been mistaken after all?
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‘Are you the girl,’ he said, turning his eyes away as he spoke, ‘are you the girl who has a room in the furthest corner of the inner court of the farmhouse?’
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‘Yes, my lord, I am,’ answered she.
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‘Hold out your hand then,’ continued the prince, feeling that he must keep his word, whatever the cost, and, to the astonishment of every one present, a little hand, white and delicate, came from beneath the black and dirty skin. The ring slipped on with ease, and, as it did so, the skin fell to the ground, disclosing the most beautiful woman everyone had ever seen.
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The prince fell on his knees before her, asking her to marry him. The princess accepted.
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The kings of every country on earth were invited, including, of course, the princess’s father. The old king was shocked to see her daughter on the throne. He fell on his knees and begged his daughter for forgiveness. The princess embraced her father and told the king that he was forgiven.
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