Read on line
Listen on line
Main > Fairy tale > All authors > Andrew Lang > Fairy tale "Graciosa and Percinet"

Graciosa and Percinet

isn't there a quicker way of knowing than that?'

`Very well,' said Percinet, `you shall see for yourself.'

So up they went together to the top of a very high tower, which, like the rest of the castle, was built entirely of rock-crystal.

There the Prince held Graciosa's hand in his, and made her put the tip of her little finger into her mouth, and look towards the town, and immediately she saw the wicked Queen go to the King, and heard her say to him, `That miserable Princess is dead, and no great loss either. I have ordered that she shall be buried at once.'

And then the Princess saw how she dressed up a log of wood and had it buried, and how the old King cried, and all the people murmured that the Queen had killed Graciosa with her cruelties, and that she ought to have her head cut off. When the Princess saw that the King was so sorry for her pretended death that he could neither eat nor drink, she cried:

`Ah, Percinet! take me back quickly if you love me.'

And so, though he did not want to at all, he was obliged to promise that he would let her go.

`You may not regret me, Princess,' he said sadly, `for I fear that you do not love me well enough; but I foresee that you will more than once regret that you left this fairy palace where we have been so happy.'

But, in spite of all he could say, she bade farewell to the Queen, his mother, and prepared to set out; so Percinet, very unwillingly, brought the little sledge with the stags and she mounted beside him. But they had hardly gone twenty yards when a tremendous noise behind her made Graciosa look back, and she saw the palace of crystal fly into a million splinters, like the spray of a fountain, and vanish.

`Oh, Percinet!' she cried, `what has happened? The palace is gone.'

`Yes,' he answered, `my palace is a thing of the past; you will see it again, but not until after you have been buried.'

`Now you are angry with me,' said Graciosa in her most coaxing voice, `though after all I am more to be pitied than you are.

Also read
Read
Read
Van Wempel's Goose
Category: United States folktales
Read times: 20
Read
The Weary Watcher
Category: United States folktales
Read times: 7