The Enchanted Prince

The Enchanted Prince. According to a Latvian folk tale.

Der verzauberte Prinz. Nach einer lettischen Volkssage 

Caroline Stahl, 1816

The title of this tale might lead you to expect that the main character is the enchanted prince; however, as soon as we begin to read, we find out that women, specifically three sisters, are at the heart of this story. Three sisters, one after another, are tempted into a magical forest where they discover an enchanted prince who cannot speak. What follows bears a resemblance to the tale of ‘Sleeping Beauty’, except it is the prince who needs to be rescued, and a young woman who becomes his saviour. Though many fairy tales feel didactic and moralising, I was delighted to see that this tale encourages young women to be brave rather than silently passive.

In the early 1800s, technological developments were enabling women to enter the public literary sphere. This story, for example, was first published in a reputable transnational literary journal with the catchy name, ‘German education leaflet for educated readers of all classes’ [‘Deutsches Unterhaltungsblatt für gebildete Leser aus allen Ständen’]. The literary journal and magazine were two of the numerous print forms that were quickly becoming more and more popular and reaching an ever-widening audience, including female readers.

Caroline Stahl was born in the Russian province of Livonia and grew up amongst its German elite. She published a dozen highly popular books for children, including Fables, Fairy Tales, and Stories for Children (1818), many of which were didactic in style, encouraging good, honest behaviour. This tale is one of her earlier publications and its subtitle, ‘According to a Latvian folk tale’, demonstrates the typical fairy-tale fascination with authentic origins (however authentic they really were) and oral traditions. Her stories attracted the attention of the Grimm brothers who mentioned the previously named collection as one of the sources for many of their tales, including ‘Rumpelstiltskin’, ‘Hansel and Gretel’ and ‘Mother Hulda’ [‘Frau Holle’]. They even included one of her own tales, ‘The Ungrateful Dwarf’, in the third edition of their Children’s and Household Tales (1837), under the name of ‘Snow White and Rose Red’, which has since become one of the most cherished Grimm fairy tales. Little do modern readers know that it was originally written by a woman!

The Enchanted Prince 

Translated by Eve Mason

“Oh, mama dearest,” Miranda pleaded in a cajoling manner, “tell me something about the forest over there, something about the enchanted prince.”  

“Yes, my dear children, but keep your distance from the forest.”

“But of course!”, the daughters affirmed, “just tell us about it.”

“I can tell you little about it; many miraculous things, but there is much that is unknown to us in the dark depths of the forest, where no mortal foot has tread; I know only of a palace deep in the bowels of the earth, to which every girl is pulled by a magnetic force if she approaches the forest; in an instant she is gone and never returns. A powerful, wicked sorceress keeps a prince and his entire empire enchanted there, a prince who dared not to return the love of the grand sorceress who had fallen in love with him. The only thing that could break the spell is a profound mystery, yet a beautiful girl is meant to be able to do it, but how? Who could divine it? And no one has succeeded yet, even though countless girls have been drawn down there. Not one has returned; beware of this, my children. There are exquisite, small, golden birds there, which lure you in with their beauteous song; snow-white kittens with rose-coloured little paws which bound around playfully; frolicking squirrels which draw closer in the most familiar of ways, and then, as you try to catch hold of them, leap away cunningly, again and again; yet if you catch sight of these delightful animals, hasten away, flee from them, otherwise you are doomed.”

“Of course, we’ll flee!”, cried the girls, “we’ll run back as quickly as possible, if we see one. Who would be so tempted? We certainly wouldn’t.”

“Do exactly that, little chicks,” the mother urged, “and spin your silk diligently so that I can weave it soon.” They had barely gone before Armgard, the eldest, said, “Today we have already spun a lot of silk, let’s go for a little walk there in the shadows, my little sisters.” The others followed willingly, and they cautiously approached the outermost bushes of the enchanted forest.

“I would so like to see just once such a fair and beautiful little bird”, said Miranda, the youngest.

“Oh, such a snow-white kitten,” cried Wulfhilde, the middle sister.

“No, a frolicking squirrel,” Armgard fancied, “that would be so tame and so familiar.”

“Well, there’s still no danger here,” they went on to say, “here you can’t see anything, the magic is in the depths of the forest.” Suddenly a dainty little squirrel leapt forward, drew closer to the sisters and beguiled them.

“Let’s flee!”, cried the younger ones and ran hurriedly back to the motherly dwelling; Armgard snatched at the squirrel, with a leap it made for the forest and stood still there, teasingly.

“Oh, I could tread just one step without danger, maybe I’ll catch it,” Armgard thought; but alas! As if by an invisible net she was entangled and drawn further and further in. Vainly she clasped at the trees, her hands were pulled back by a strange force, and soon she was in a hollow far away. She was pulled down as if by indiscernible hands and her grasp on the world faded away. When she awoke, she found herself in a magnificent hall. Innumerable gold and crystal candelabras diffused a bright light that the mirrored walls reflected even more dazzlingly. Carpets with wonderful figures, resplendent in glorious colours, were splayed out across the marble floor. Alabaster pillars stretched upwards in the most beautiful sculpted forms and held aloft the splendidly painted vaulted ceiling. A radiant, ethereal fabric cloaked the high windows, delicate strings of water pearls served as the curtains’ fringe. The furniture was made of the most handsome mahogany, richly embellished in gold in artful patterns. On some of the tables, whose tiling was made of solid gold with rows of diamonds, golden lamps burned, all of them exuding the fragrances of both the East and the West Indies. A captivating music resonated, from where you could not tell. Lost in astounded wonder, Armgard stood there, unable to believe her eyes. Finally, she dared to walk on, but quietly and fearfully tiptoed around. She now came across the other rooms, one after the other, all equally wondrous. At last she set foot in a resplendent hall; immediately a table rose up in the middle of the room, covered in the most luscious dishes und sweet wines. A golden chair shuffled closer. She took a seat and found everything to be sublime. Once she was finished and stood up, the table sank down and the chair went back to its original place. She walked on and found a beautiful bedchamber. Hovering angelic figures held aloft above the bed stately curtains which hung down in neat folds. But the handsome wardrobe by the bed enraptured her more than anything else yet. What opulent, elegant garments, how they clung to her slender body, and the jewellery, how delicate, and the finery! Graceful flower garlands or bobbing feathers adorned the sweet straw hat. This took up more time than anything she had previously seen. Eventually she detached herself from these treasures with the intent to pay heed to them anew the next morning, and in walking away was met by cupboards richly filled with blissful linen and silk cloths, porcelain, silver and the like. The garden was illuminated by a myriad of crystal lanterns, and the most delectable fruits covered the trees. One door led back to the same, another back into the fairy palace.

In one of the innumerable rooms, rivalling each other in their splendour, lay in a chair a most beautiful young man. It was the prince who had been rendered mute through the magic power of the fairy and could not leave this room. His arm he lay on the armrest of the chair, while he supported his head with his hand. Armgard stood, astounded, the prince glanced up, and a beam of joy blazed across his fair face, but soon he sank back into his melancholy position. Armgard drew closer to him and began to speak, yet he shook his head sadly and gestured that he was mute. Saddened, she walked away, and came from his room directly into a hall of tremendous magnitude, illuminated only by the soft twilight; for in the middle of the ceiling dangled a chandelier that nevertheless did not suffice to give a room of such size the lustre of the other rooms, in which candlelight and candelabras glimmered. Two large folding doors presented themselves on both sides. Four statues, which with cautionary countenances bid the onlooker to turn back, adorned the sides of the doors; above one of them shone the words:

“If you dare to cross this threshold,
The prince’s death you will behold.”

And above the other:

“Hold fast against your curiosity’s might,
Else your life will sink into death’s long night.”

“No! No!”, Armgard cried and fled into the bedchamber; she laid herself down on the bed and dreamt of the glorious things she had seen, of the prince, of the hall full of secrets, and it was as if a voice came to her in a whisper: “Do not go on, no, not into the secretive room.” For several days she felt content in her new, splendid surroundings; candles, lamps and lights were always burning, and no sunbeam displaced her from there. The beautiful garments, the opulent jewellery, the delicate finery were donned a hundred times, yet no one was there to admire her, the mirror returned only her own image.

“Oh!”, she sighed, “I shall pass my life here in such solitary mourning, the handsome prince is mute and melancholy, no living thing resides here apart from us, oh that I could escape it all!” Only the hall with the closed doors bothered her now. For hours on end she would stare at the rooms; “What do they disguise?”, she thought with intense curiosity, “perhaps a way out; it’s surely possible. And if the prince were to die at once? It’s not possible, those under a spell cannot die, mother said, and he would have died a thousand times, for the girls who were here before me were just as curious as I. Where might they have stayed, these girls? Perhaps they went into the room on the left, no, I would rather go in the one to the right; forgive me, handsome prince! But you will surely not die because of this.”

She dared to approach it, but it seemed to her as if the statues raised their hands menacingly against her, as if the meaning of the words above became obfuscated. Quivering in terror, she stepped back, but her curiosity grew stronger with every day that passed, and she all the more daring. Finally, she plucked up her courage to not let herself be deterred and approached the doors determinedly. In vain the statues revolved, in vain blazed the superscription different words, pronouncing her own death. “Mere figments of the imagination!”, she cried, and confidently turned the golden key; once more it pulled her back in warning, but she plucked up the courage anew; the doors burst open, she was thrust in, and behind her the doors closed with a clatter.

Stupefied and bewitched she stood still, harrowing fear took hold of her, alas! There lay in the enormous room an uncountable multitude of beautiful maidens, all cold and rigid like corpses. Tremulous and desperate she wrung her hands. Funereal music sounded; the noises vibrated plaintively in her breast, growing ever quieter, like the tones of a lullaby to children on the verge of sleep; her senses grew clouded, her eyelids drooped down heavily, and she fell down lifelessly amongst the dead.

In the hut the mother and the sisters grieved the loss of the fair girl. Sometimes even the girls would wander to the place where they left her, saying that she must have followed the enticing squirrel far. “Yes, if it had only been the snow-white kitten,” Wulfhilde thought, “but to run after the squirrel into the forest, no, I wouldn’t have done it.” She had not yet uttered these words, when a friendly kitten began to fawn on her, purring; it was white and fine like fresh snow with paws the colour of a rose. Miranda called out to her and hurried away, but Wulfhilde stooped down to take hold of it; the kitten sprang up. Something grabbed her outstretched hand and pulled her away, despite her resistance. – She found herself, like Armgard, in the hall of mirrors; the prince and everything was there for her too, and, alas! Just like her sister, curiosity, imprudence and boredom led her into the room full of secrets, where she found death by her side.

Miranda went often crying to the woods. Longingly she stretched her beautiful arm into the darkness that enfolded her beloved sisters and called them with tender names. She heard not a sound in reply; only occasionally resounded the wondrous call of a sweetly radiant bird, which fluttered on the twigs and swayed on the slender branches. She blew it a thousand kisses, “I can’t come to you, you darling bird, I cannot, come to me.” On one occasion, as she delighted again in the sight of the agreeable little singer, it unexpectedly flew over to her and perched itself confidentially on her shoulder. She was enamoured, snatched at it and wanted to take it quickly back to her hut, but it was as if she could no longer go back. In her fear she let the little bird fly away, she felt herself pulled forward and cried out sobbing, “I am trapped, oh, I am trapped, like my sisters! Oh, poor mother! Oh, poor mother!” It pulled her away into the dark depths, and she too found herself in the luminous hall. She wandered through all the rooms and found the handsome prince lying mournfully in his chair, resting on his arm. Concerned, she paused, yet full of joy to have found another living creature amidst such profound isolation. Finally, she approached him and spoke to him in a friendly manner. He gazed into her smiling face, into her violet-blue eyes that glinted at him brightly and softly beneath silken lashes, at her coral lips that spoke such kind words to him, and sighed at the fact that such a wonderfully fair beauty must follow her sisters. She ascertained from his gestures that he was mute, and his melancholy look pierced her heart. “You poor prince, oh, you poor enchanted prince!”, she said in a caressing tone, and with her hand, soft as velvet, stroked his own. But he continued to silently gaze at the ground before him, and only now and then would raise his beautiful eyes into the heaven of her glowing face, but with a wistful expression.

Miranda had, like her sisters, an ardent desire to open the closed doors. The golden keys that gleamed in the locks were so inviting. “The spell must break”, she thought, “nothing else is possible. I don’t want to go around the world in the one to the right, for it would bring death to the poor handsome prince, as the superscription shows; in the other—well, perhaps the magic spell is in there. If the wicked sorceress wanted to kill me, well, she could do it right here, and who only knows where my sisters reside! They probably didn’t even come here; the forest is so large.” In this way she knew how to embolden herself more every day to undertake the daring deed. She noticed that the prince did not sleep; she could come whenever she wanted, and so she did often; he didn’t even eat or drink! Her sympathy and commiseration were limitless. She spent almost all of her time with him, often entertaining him with trifles and sweet conversations, but in his gloom he noticed little of this—but when he looked at her even once so plaintively, tears would come to her eyes.

“I don’t know”, she thought, “why I am so good to him, it’s probably out of sympathy.” With increasing frequency, he would look up at her, but with an ever more sorrowful countenance, an ever more grief-stricken expression. One time she left him in order to cry at length and came accidentally into the hall. “I shall go into the room,” she thought, “and what shall come of this shall come, I’ll break the spell, I am sure of it”, and without further thought, she rushed towards the doors. Yet it seemed to her as if the words above the doors had changed, and she fled back in horror; but calmly the pictures stood as before; the superscriptions blazed unaltered and undisturbed. “It’s nothing, nothing at all”, she said, and squeezed her eyes shut so as not to see anything. It was as if the statues were bending down and looking her straight in the face. She looked up, terrified, and there she stood already by the door, and the statues with their dreadful countenances seemed to block off her way back; it was as if they were drawing closer to each other and presenting her with her path. In dreadful fear she turned the key; the doors opened, and she was inside, without knowing how. Everything was dark; in the depths of the unfathomable room twelve candles burned, lighting up a black trestle upon which a corpse lay. Shuddering, quaking, with staggering steps she approached it slowly and looked at it tremulously. There she recognised, oh, dreadful sight! the prince, dead. He lay there, rigid and lifeless, his heavenly eyes closed. She staggered back in horror. “No, no, it’s a dream,” she cried, “just a ghastly vision!” But alas, it was no dream! She threw herself over the beloved body, covering his face and his hands in kisses and tears and wailing that she had murdered him. “I didn’t want your death at all, you poor, handsome, beloved prince, I wanted to save you and risked my life for it”, she lamented, and with her tender hands stroked the cold cheeks of the dead prince.

Suddenly the thought occurred to her, “How? In my fear just now did I mix up the rooms? Yes, that must be it, or the malice of the wicked witch made me mad. No, I’ll hurry to the other room, what respect do I have now for my life when he is dead! And she rushed away, desperation filling her heart. She slipped out of the door unopposed and into the other room; the superscriptions were muddled and for one moment she wavered, before plunging rapidly into the open grave. Her fair sisters lay there like corpses beside many other beautiful girls. “Is everyone dead?”, she cried out, sobbing, wringing her lily-white hands, “only I, the ill-fated one, must live, only to mourn you with countless tears!” She bent over Wulfhilde who lay closest to her, and exclaimed, “Wake up, wake up, beloved sister!” Wulfhilde then opened her eyes and sat upright, but at this moment melodious sounds resounded and sung the awoken girl back into a deep slumber. Astounded and overjoyed, Miranda attempted to waken her and the others; her voice revived them, but the music sucked their life away once more. “So that’s the magic!”, cried Miranda, “but where do these sounds come from?” She scouted around, listening carefully. In the very depths of the room stood statues holding musical instruments in their hands which they let ring out into the room. She rushed to the closest one, wrenched the flute out of its hands and threw it onto the floor. Suddenly the others sounded in wild, torturous noises that the dead were beginning to stir and convulse and moan. She bravely snatched the resonating instruments from all their stony hands, then shouted out: “Wake up, wake up, you sleeping beauties!” They all stood up, newly vitalized, full of joyous wonder, of a reawakened life force, and their wan cheeks glowed afresh like the dawn. The sisters kissed one another, weeping tears of joy.

“But oh, the prince!”, cried Miranda, prying herself from their sisterly embrace, “the poor prince!”, and she hastened away. The flaming writing had extinguished itself, the trestle for the dead had disappeared along with the candles; she rushed away to search for him in his room, and there too all the candles had gone out, the candelabras no longer burned, and heavenly sunlight cast bountiful streams of radiance through the high windows into the splendid rooms. Delighted, she carried on, where she was met by richly clad noble men and servants. In the hall of mirrors, she caught sight of the prince in his royal jewels, magnificent and handsome in the flush of youth, surrounded by his royal court, who had until now been under a spell of some kind. Everyone thronged around their fair lord, bestowed upon them once more; but the beautiful Miranda barely noticed them as she stood silently at the door, tears of joy welling up in her heavenly eyes, as he rushed towards her and clasped her in his arms, covered her lovely face in a thousand kisses, showered her with intense gratitude, and introduced her to everyone as his and their saviour and his future bride. Once the initial enraptured daze had subsided, the overjoyed prince led his beautiful betrothed into the splendid gardens, and as they regaled in the glorious sunlight that they been devoid of for so long, he told her the sad story of his enchantment with the following words:

“I was living happily and prosperously, a powerful prince in the states that you, beloved, see spread far and wide around me. Then one time I strayed into the forest of a wicked sorceress, as I was pursuing a deer far too zealously. Suddenly my horse reared up beneath me in a frenzy; snorting, it covered its bit with foam; as much as I coaxed it, patting it on the neck and stroking it, it would not be subdued. At first, I saw nothing at all; finally, I noticed not far from me a ghastly, hideous, dwarfish woman, who drew closer to me with a leering friendliness and bid me welcome.

“I quickly realised that it was the sorceress, and so thought it judicious to be polite and then swiftly take my leave, but she immediately discovered that I pleased her, and she chose me for her spouse. In vain, I struggled against this great favour and at once, she demanded my consent. Whatever I argued was futile; I was finally forced to explain to her quite firmly that I would never be her husband. If she had showed me her friendly side in the most repugnant light, she now showed me her boundless fury in the most dreadful of ways. Her small, green, porcine eyes rolled, like daggers, towards me piercingly; as if gout-ridden, her gaping, toothless mouth convulsed; and eventually, like a squawking owl, snorting with wrath, she erupted with the words: ‘Wretched worm, that you should dare to defy my will, you shall sleep together with your empire and your subjects, until a maiden, out of love and compassion for you, willingly submits herself to death.’ With these words she touched me with her staff, and I sank down into unconsciousness.

“I do not know for how long I slept, yet when I awoke, I found myself in my room, on the chair where you found me, and before me stood the sorceress with her staff. ‘How did you find your little doze, my prince? Have you now slept away your folly, will you now be more worthy of the honour that I had thought to grant you through the possession of my heart and my person?’

“‘Touch me once more with your staff’, I cried, full of revulsion, ‘I would much rather never wake again than be your husband.’

“Almost bursting with rage, the monster snorted: ‘No, never again will you sleep until the breaking of your spell. You shall stay awake forever and ever without ever feeling the alleviation of your harrowing punishment. The time will crawl at a snail’s pace before the chariot that will lead you through life arrives, and you shall be mute, such that no vocal grievance shall lighten your overflowing breast, nor shall your foolish mouth sweet-talk a maiden who could save you.’ With this, she disappeared.

“I wanted to stand up, oh, but in vain! I was spellbound to my chair. I wanted to speak, yet my mouth was closed. What a dire existence began for me from this minute onwards! The sorceress eventually seemed to relent and show a little sympathy for my horrendous condition and enticed a host of maidens here with all number of friendly guises of little animals who nonetheless met their death without releasing me. With anguish I watched the last hope of rescue dwindle away, but then you appeared, a fair, smiling angel, and awoke in my desolate breast the sentiment that had long since died away. But alas! I faced with inexpressible torment the hour in which you, like your forerunners, would draw away from me for evermore, you, the loveliest of them all. When you were not there, I consumed myself with fear and agitation for your wellbeing, and I was reassured only by your presence. Even after a few hours of not seeing you, my angst knew no bounds. Suddenly, all the candles went out, a peal of thunder echoed through the horrible darkness. In senseless fear I covered by eyes with both hands; without my knowing, the shackle on my tongue unfastened, and I cried out: ‘Miranda, oh, Miranda! Don’t let me die without you!’ With joyful surprise, I heard the words out loud, and doubting whether my mouth spoke them or another creature near me, I looked up, and a sea of light coursed blindingly towards me through all the windows of the room. I spring up, full of a rapture I had never felt before, forgetting the bonds of magic which are no longer, I am free, the magic is gone. My faithful servants crowd in, clasping my knee with tears of joy; I follow them up until the hall of mirrors, but my eyes search for you in vain. On the verge of wresting myself from them to search for you, oh eternally beloved, I catch sight of you at last in the entrance. Now you are mine, mine for evermore.”

Thus, the prince concluded, and squeezed his divinely beautiful beloved all the more fervently to his heart. On the following day, they celebrated a resplendent wedding feast at which the good mother was not absent, who afterwards lived with the sisters in the palace. From now on they no longer spun and weaved silk, but wedded handsome princes; Miranda, however, and her splendid husband, lived long in the upmost happiness to the very oldest of ages, surrounded by flourishing children and grandchildren.