Chapter 11: The Princess Goldenhair

There were once a king and queen who had no children, though they greatly longed for them.

One day the queen was sitting at the window sewing, and the sunlight shone upon the golden thimble she wore, so that it fairly dazzled the eyes. “I wish,” said the queen, “that I had a little daughter and that her hair was as golden as my thimble in the sun.”

Soon after this a daughter was indeed born to the queen, and the hair upon her head was of pure gold, but in the hour that she was born the queen herself died.

As the little princess grew up, her hair was the wonder of all and because it was so beautiful she was always called the Princess Goldenhair or Goldilocks.

The king was prouder of his daughter’s beauty than of all his treasures, and there was nothing he loved better than to see her unfasten her shining hair and shake it down about her, and then it was so long and bright that it covered her like a golden mantle.

But one day the king went hunting, and in the chase he rode so fast that at last he left all his followers behind.

He had reached a deep and lonely glade when suddenly his horse reared under him, and there, standing directly in his path was a beautiful woman dressed all in black. Her hair, too, was black as a raven’s wing and her eyes were strangely bright. She stood looking at the king and she did not speak.

The king did not speak either, at first, for there was something in her look that made him ill at ease, even while he wondered at her beauty.

“Who are you?” he said at last; but she made no answer. Then he questioned her whence she came, but she was still silent. But when he asked her if she would go back to the palace with him she nodded her head. So the king took her up before him and rode home with her.

After that the stranger lived at the palace. She spoke little and when she did her voice was hoarse and croaking, but she was very beautiful, and the king loved her and made her his queen.

There were great rejoicings over the marriage; but Goldenhair wept and wept; she feared the stepmother with her black hair and her bright round eyes.

Nevertheless at first the new queen was kind enough to the child. But then, little by little, she began to show the hatred she felt toward her. After a while it was nothing but hard words and harder looks. Above all, she could not bear the sight of the princess’s hair, but shuddered every time she saw it. After a while she had a dark hood made, and she obliged the princess to wear it, so that her hair might be hidden.

The child never dared to take off the hood by day, but every evening after the maids had left the scullery she would steal down there with a candle. It was very dark in the scullery, and the mice and beetles scuttled to and fro, but as Goldenhair opened the door she would say,

“Nimble mice that fear the light,
Small, black beetles of the night,
Shadows lurking here and there,
I pray you fright not Goldenhair.”
Then the mice and the beetles would noiselessly disappear in the cracks; the shadows would shrink into corners, and entering, Goldenhair would take off her hood, and shake down her hair to comb and brush its shining lengths. Then she would bind it up again and cover it with her hood before she went up into the castle.

The stepmother knew nothing of this, but every day she grew bolder in her hate. She took from Goldenhair all the beautiful clothes and jewels that her father had had made for her and gave her instead things scarce better than those a kitchen wench might wear.

However the princess made no complaint, and the king her father did not even seem to notice it. It was as though the wicked queen had cast a spell over him so that he could see or think of no one but her.

One day when Goldenhair’s heart was very heavy she wandered off by herself into the deep forest that lay all about the palace.