The fairy ran back to the prison and looked terrified.
“What happened?”
“Cancaline is a cruel fairy who hates me. She is older and more powerful than me. Cancaline stole the princess when she was alone in the basket outside the prison.”
The queen was heart-broken and she begged the fairy to try her best to find the princess.
It was at this time that the man looking after the prison came and saw that the princess was not in the prison. He immediately went and told the king about this.
Soon, the king stormed into the tower-prison.
“What has happened to the princess?” The king thundered angrily.
The queen was crestfallen and she mumbled an answer. “A fairy whose name I do not know came and carried off the princess.”
The wicked king was furious. “I will hang you now. You are of no use to me now.”
The king himself dragged the queen to the nearest tree to try and hang her.
When the king climbed the tree to look for a branch, the fairy who had made herself invisible appeared behind the king and gave the king a push.
The king fell off the branch and broke four of teeth. He was trying to mend it when the fairy carried the queen off in her flying chariot to a beautiful castle.
The queen and the fairy lived in the castle henceforth.
Other than the loss of her daughter, the queen lived well there in the castle with the fairy.
Fifteen years passed this way and the queen had recovered from the loss of her child.
Adapted from the Fairy Tales written by Countess d’Aulnoy
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