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Main > Portuguese folktales > Fairy tale "The Daughter of the King of Naples"

The Daughter of the King of Naples

They lifted her tenderly and carried her home.

The fisherman's daughter gave the princess some of her own clothes to wear and they lived together as if they were sisters. Together they did all the work of the little house and the princess was too busy to weep. Sometimes, however, she cried in the night when the fisherman's wife and daughter were asleep. She wept for her lost love and for the royal palace of the king of Naples which had always been her home.

Now it happened that the prince's ship encountered a great storm and was driven about by the sea. At last it was blown by the gales to the land of the Junqueiras.

The prince saw the fisherman's daughter and the princess standing on the rocks by the sea. He stared hard at the princess. Then he spoke in a voice which shook.

"You remind me of some one I used to know," he said. "Tell me your name, I pray you, fair maid."

The princess looked down at the garments of the fisher maid which she wore. She blushed. The prince she had recognized the very moment she had seen him.

"I am the daughter of the king of Naples," she said.

The fisherman's daughter stared at her in amazement.

"She is no king's daughter!" she cried. "She is a poor abandoned maid who came to us out of the sea. We found her upon these very rocks. It is my own dress that she is wearing. A king's daughter, indeed! She is no more the daughter of the king of Naples than I am!"

But the prince had taken the daughter of the king of Naples in his arms. As soon as they returned to the palace their wedding was celebrated with great joy and they lived together as God lives with the angels.

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