A Tale Dark and Grimm Read Free

more. My master’s ship is full of such wonders. And they can be yours, if you will just accompany me down to the harbor.”
    The princess hesitated for a moment—since her last husband-to-be had died, she had not set foot outside the palace. But the allure of the gold was too strong. She threw a shining traveling cloak over her shoulders and followed Johannes to the boat.
    The young king, in his disguise as a merchant, greeted her. Her beauty was so stunning, her sadness so apparent and so tender, that he nearly fainted again. But somehow he did not, and she smiled at him and invited him to show her all the treasures he had brought to her fair land.
    As soon as they had descended below the deck, Johannes hurried to the captain of the ship, and, in whispered tones, instructed him to cast off from shore and set sail for home immediately.
    Â 
    Â 
    Now, my young readers, I know just what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, Hmmm. Stealing a girl. That’s an interesting way of winning her heart. Allow me to warn you now that, under any other circumstances, stealing a girl is about the worst way of winning her heart you could possibly cook up.
    But, because this happened long ago, in a faraway land, it seems to have worked.
    Â 
    Â 
    For the golden princess came back up to the deck and saw that her land was far away from her. At first she did indeed protest, and fiercely, too, that she’d been carried away by lowborn merchants. But when one of the “merchants” revealed himself to be a king, and revealed that, in addition, he was madly in love with her, and when, besides, Johannes assured her that, if she really wanted to, she could go home, but she couldn’t take the gold if she did, the princess realized that in fact the young king was just the kind of man she would like to marry after all, and decided that she’d give the whole matrimony thing one last shot.
    And they all lived happily ever after.
    Â 
    Â 
    The End
    Are there any small children in the room? If so, it would be best if we just let them think this really is the end of the story and hurried them off to bed. Because this is where things start to get, well ... awesome.
    But in a horrible, bloody kind of way.
    Â 
    Â 
    As the ship plowed through the purple sea, the new lovers made moon-faces at each other up near the bow. Faithful Johannes was sitting near the back of the ship, admiring the success of his plan, when he noticed three ravens alight on a mast beam.
    The first raven motioned with his beak at the king and princess. “What a lovely couple those two make,” he said.
    And the second said, “Yes. Too bad they won’t stay that way.”
    The first said, “What do you mean?”
    â€œWell,” the second replied, “when the ship gets to land, a beautiful chestnut stallion will canter up to the group, and the king will decide to ride it back to the castle. But if he does, he will be thrown from its back and die.”
    â€œGood God, that’s horrible!” said the first raven. “Is there nothing anyone can do?”
    â€œOh, there is,” said the second raven. “Someone could kill the horse before the king mounts it. But what good is that? For if someone did it, and told why he did it, he would be turned to stone, from the tips of his toes to the knobs of his knees.”
    â€œTo stone?” asked the first raven.
    â€œTo stone,” answered the second.
    The third raven, who’d been listening quietly, cut in at this point. “It gets worse, you know,” he said. “If, by some chance, the two lovers escape that danger, another lies ahead. For when they arrive at the gates of the castle, a beautiful bridal gown, made of pure gold, will be laid out on a bed of purple flowers. The princess will want to wear it, of course. But if she touches it she will be consumed by a ball of fire and burn to a cinder right there on the spot.”
    â€œGood