the untidy princess

once upon a time, in a far away land, there lived a princess. her father, the king, had a great palance one hundred stories tall, and at the very top of a tallest spire was the princess's bedroom. carelessness hung out there, little witching fingers among the books and the bedclothes, the dishes on the windowsill and the dust on the desk. insolence, too. down the spiral stairs at the very bottom of the palace, there are all sorts of servants who might clean it up, but the princess was the only person in all the land who could climb all those stairs without fainting away. the law of the land decreed that the princess must be slender, but with all the feasting and the gifts of candy from hopeful suitors, the ancient kings had found that the only way to keep a princess's weight down was to have her climb one hundred flights of stairs every night.

every night in her dressing room, her ladies-in-waiting would help her into her nightrobe, and then with one candle, she would begin her long climb. she had been climbing these stairs since she could walk, and it did not tire her, but it was very long and very lonely and things were beginning to get nasty in her bedchamber.

one day, the princess was sitting amid the disarray of her red velvet comforter, frowning at herself in the gilded mirror. it was against the law of the land for princesses to furrow their lovely brows, but the princess did allow herself certain liberties in her spire.
"i am an untidy princess," she said. "all day i attend affairs of state and dance with princes and eat delicious feasts and a great deal of candy, but what good is such a joyous life if i cannot have a neat bedchamber?" and she pulled the covers over her head and cried herself to sleep.

summer was coming, and the princess's heart should have been light, for summer meant all sorts of lovely things- boating parties, tournaments, carnivals, fireworks- but instead, as the squalor began closing in on the princess, she grew more and more sad of heart, until at last her father noticed.
"my child," he said, "why is your heart not light with the coming of summer?"
"o my father," said the princess, "i cannot feel happy when the knowledge that i must return every night to my bedchamber, filled as it is with dust and cobwebs. insects are beginning to congregate at the windows, and i can hardly walk for the refuse upon the floor."
the king was very sorry, but did not know what to do, for the laws of the land forbade princesses to clean their own rooms, but no commoner could climbs all those stairs.
"o my father," said the princess, "perhaps we might issue a reward. any commoner who can climb the stairs may have anything they want, as far as i'm concerned. let it be my hand in marriage. i cannot go on living in that bedchamber."

so the king issued a proclamation to all the commoners that anyone who could scale the hundred staircases and clean the princess's room would receive a mighty reward, and the toughest, strongest commoners from all over the land came with buckets and mops, attempting to scale the mighty staircase-- but all failed. the princess's face began to be wet with tears all day long as every man and woman who tried came slithering bumpity-bumpity-bumpity back down the long spiral. she shed her tears into the rivers at boating parties. her wine at the feasts tasted of salt from her mourning. her greatest champions at the tournaments could not bring a smile to her eyes, and the fireworks over the palace illuminated the droplets wet on her cheeks.

as summer wore on, the proclamation made it's way into the deep forests in the north of the land. in a little cottage in the midst of the forests, there lived three brothers- joffel, hank, and ralf. joffel and hank were hardy boys, who had chopped wood in the forest all their lives, pulling great carts filled with wood out of the forest to market every week. ralf was not much for pulling great carts of wood; he hunted and grew crops and repaired the house instead, though he could weild an axe with the best of his brothers.

at any rate, they three loaded a cart with provisions and began the long journey to the palace. It was agreed that they would take turns pulling the cart, but when ralf's turn came, he pulled too slowly for his brothers.
"little brother," they said, "we will pull the cart, for if you do, we shall never arrive."
"you have no chance at winning this challenge," added joffel, and the pair laughed cheerfully and took extra turns pulling the cart, but it didn't seem to worry them.

oddly enough, it didn't seem to worry ralf either. after two weeks, the brothers arrived at the palace. they didn't have to wait long for their turn to try to clean the princess's room-- most had already tried and failed. joffel went first. he climbed forty flights of stairs easily, and the princess, who watched everyone's progress eagerly and secretly, began to be filled with a secret hope. But after sixty flights, he had slowed to a weak plod. at seventy-five, joffel very suddenly got calf-cramps-- he dropped his mop and his bucket and slid bumpity-bumpity-bumpity down the stairs to the bottom. hank and ralf dragged him out to the tent they had been kindly provided with, and ralf fed him restorative soup while hank went for his try.

As hank began climbing, the princess was again filled with hope. this brother was even taller and stronger than the last. at fifty flights, his energy was unflagging. "perhaps he is the one," said the princess, and then felt scared not only for voicing the secret thought, but also because she had suddenly realized she would have to wed this immense bearded stranger if he succeeded.

however, at eighty flights, when hank had slowed to a sort of listless meander, he stumbled, and such was his weakness at climbing for so long that he could not catch himself, and he slid bumpity-bumpity-bumpity to the bottom. once again, the princess climbed up the stairs in sorrow and cried herself to sleep. molds that hadn't been named yet were cultivating in the corners of her room, and the dust billowed aroud her knees.

the next day, ralf bid his ailing brothers a cheerful farewell. "i have left enough food to last you a while in the cart," he said, "and taken some for myself. don't worry over me."
"you will be back here, in bed beside us before the hour is up," said joffel grumpily. his convalescence was not making him pleasant. "that may be so," said ralf, but he smiled with unerving superiority, and left the tent with a large pack upon his back.

of course, by now, neither the king nor the princess was interested in 'fair play' anymore. if the dark-haired peasant had a contraption that would aid him in getting up, so much the better. they gave ralf his mop and bucket, and he began the great ascent.

the princess followed at what she thought was a safe, unnoticeable distance to see what the peasant would do. what he did was pull an apple out of his pack and munch it as he climbed. once, when the princess peeped around a corner to see his progress, he glanced back and winked at her. she was sort of haughty for a while, until it felt silly to be haughty at someone who couldn't see you.

at forty flights of stairs, ralf sat down, and the princess's heart sank. but, instead of sliding bumpity-bumpity-bump down to the bottom of the stairs, he pulled a blanket and some journeybread out of his pack, had a nice snack and settled down to sleep for the night. the princess was suddenly quite gleeful! what a wonderful scheme! for of course he didn't need to climb up all in one day. she bid the peasant a very courteous goodnight as she passed him at the fortieth flight. "goodnight, princess," he said, and she smiled to herself despite the mess that awaited her at the top of the stairs.

in the morning, the king asked her if the peasant had reached the top of the stairs, and the princess shook her head with a delirious little secret smile. then she spent the day following ralf up the stairs. in the morning, she was rather shy of him, but at noon when he offered her half his pear, she timidly climbed up level with him, and as they ate, they began conversing. ralf, who was still a little tired from yesterday, stopped at sixty-five flights, and he and the princess looked out over the land from one of the casement windows. ralf pointed to the distant part of the forest where he lived, and the princess showed ralf places where carnivals and tournaments were happening-- tiny little coloured tents and flags. when it got dark, they watched the fireworks together, and the princess went up to her filthy room and, for the first time in month, did not cry herself to sleep.

the next day, ralf, tired from the last two days, only climbed fifteen flights. at the eightieth flight the view of the land was quite breathtaking. he sat with the princess for most of the day, and she brought up some pastries she had pilfered from the breakfast table. for a while, she did embroidery and he whittled. they talked of all sorts of things- wars and woodcutting, storybooks and affairs of state. at night, they watched the palace fireworks and the princess skipped up to her room, so happy that some of the mold wilted away.

the next day, ralf climbed ten flights, and the next day, five. his legs were indeed very tired, but he could have climbed the last five. instead, he spent the day with the princess. as it grew dark and the fireworks began, ralf grew silent. "what is wrong, ralf?" said the princess.
"princess," said ralf, "i do not want to climb the last five flights and succeed in earning the great reward if it means i may spend no more days in your company."
the princess was delighted at this, for she had forgotten he did not know the reward. she did not tell him, however. "please finish for me. i am sure we will see each other again." ralf sighed and agreed, and the princess danced off to her bedroom.

the next day, while the princess was eating breakfast, ralf mounted the last five flights, and cleaned the princess's filthy bedroom. she, who had become filled with a boundless energy since ralf's advent, danced up flight after flight of stairs looking for him, but when she reached her room and found it so clean, she fainted clean away, and began falling bumpity-bumpity down the one hundred flights of stairs. ralf dropped the mop he had been proudly posing with, and began chasing her down. he was very tired but he managed to stay conscious long enough to catch her at forty flights. many guards, servants, and courtiers who had heard the ruckus panted up forty flights to see what the commotion was about. "what has happened?" they demanded. the guards glared menacingly. "i think," said ralf, weakly, "that she was overcome with joy at the sight of her clean room." the crowd on the stairs burst into a hubbub of exclamation, and in the midst of all the confused noise, ralf heard that the reward for success was the princess's hand. weakened as he was, this information was too much to bear, and he fainted away. the princess and ralf slid bumpity-bumpity-bump through the crowd and down to the very bottom of the stairs where they lay, dazed and undignified as the crowd panted down after them and annouced the good news to the king.

ralf and the princess were wed, and after a while, succeeded the throne. they abolished the stairs law and the chores law and lived happily ever after in a very neat palace with a lot of wasted upper stories, which eventually turned from concrete stories into abstract stories, much to the delight of the court storyteller and all the young offspring of ralf and the princess. there were many fireworks.