The Grey Fairy Book | Page 3

him till he had given her the ass's skin.
The king was both astonished and grieved at this new request, but did
not hesitate an instant. The ass was sacrificed, and the skin laid at the
feet of the princess.
The poor girl, seeing no escape from the fate she dreaded, wept afresh,
and tore her hair; when, suddenly, the fairy stood before her.
‘Take heart,' she said, ‘ all will now go 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.'
So the princess clothed herself in the ass's skin, and slipped from the
palace without being seen by anyone.

Directly she was missed there was a great hue and cry, and every
corner, possible and impossible, was searched. Then the king sent out
parties along all the roads, but the fairy threw her invisible mantle over
the girl when they approached, and none of them could see her.
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 ass's skin was
so dirty they would not allow her to enter their houses. For her flight
had been so hurried she had had no time to clean it.
Tired and disheartened at her ill-fortune, she was wandering, one day,
past the gate of a farmyard, situated 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.
‘I want a girl to wash the dishes and feed the turkeys, and clean out the
pig-sty,' said the w omen, ‘and, to judge by your dirty clothes, you
would not be too fine for the work.'
The girl accepted her offer with joy, and she was at once set to work in
a corner of the kitchen, where all the farm servants came and made fun
of her, and the ass's skin in which she was wrapped. But by-and-by
they got so used to the sight of it that it ceased to amuse them, and she
worked so hard and so well, that her mistress grew quite fond of her.
And she was so clever at keeping sheep and herding turkeys that you
would have thought she had done nothing else during her whole life!
One day she was sitting on the banks of a stream bewailing her
wretched lot, when she suddenly caught sight of herself in the water.
Her hair and part of her face was quite concealed by the ass's head,
which was drawn right over like a hood, 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 filled with shame at the spectacle.
Then she threw off her disguise and jumped into the water, plunging in
again and again, 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, and
now seemed more dirty than ever; but, as she did so, she comforted
herself with the thought that to-morrow was a holiday, and that she
would be able for a few hours to forget that she was a farm girl, and be
a princess once more.

So, at break of day, she stamped on the ground, as the fairy had told her,
and instantly the dress like the sky lay across her tiny bed. Her room
was so small that there was no place for the train of her dress to spread
itself out, but she pinned it up carefully when she combed her beautiful
hair and piled it up on the top of her head, as she had always worn it.
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.
Now the farm was a royal farm, 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