Graciosa and Percinet

Graciosa and Percinet is a French literary fairy tale by Madame d'Aulnoy. Andrew Lang included it in The Red Fairy Book.

Synopsis

A king and queen had a beautiful daughter, Graciosa, and an ugly duchess hated her. One day, the queen died. The king grieved so much that his doctors ordered him to hunt. Weary, he stopped at the duchess's castle and discovered how rich she was. He agreed to marry her even though she demanded control of her stepdaughter.

The princess was reasoned into behaving well by her nurse. A handsome young page, Percinet, appeared. He was a rich young prince with a fairy gift, and he was in her service. He gave her a horse to ride to greet the duchess. It made the duchess's look ugly, and she demanded it, and that Percinet led it as he led it for Graciosa. Nevertheless the horse ran away, and her disarray made her look even uglier. The duchess had Graciosa beaten with rods, except that the rods were turned into peacock feathers, and she suffered no harm.

The wedding went on, and the king arranged a tournament to flatter the queen. The king's knights overthrew all the challengers, for all the ugliness of the queen, until a young challenger overthrew them and showed the portrait of the princess as the most beautiful woman in the world. The queen had her abandoned in the woods. Percinet rescued her, but she wished to return to her father, and when Percinet showed her how the queen had claimed her dead and buried a log of wood in her place, she insisted. He told her that she would never see his castle again until she was buried.

The king was glad to see her, but when the queen returned and insisted, he seemed convinced that Graciosa was an imposter. The queen imprisoned her, and with the aid of a wicked fairy, set her to disentangle a skein, on pain of her life. Graciosa thought Percinet would not aid her, but finally in despair called on him, and he disentangled it. The outraged queen set her to sort a room filled with feathers, and Percinet did that as well. Then the queen set her to bring a box to her own castle, and forbad her to open it. Curiosity got the better of her, and Graciosa freed a swarm of little men and women whom she could not get back in. Percinet helped her. The servants would not admit Graciosa, but gave her a letter telling they would not let her in.

The queen suggested that they lift a stone in the garden, which covered a well, on the grounds she had heard it covered a treasure. When it was up, she pushed Graciosa in, and dropped the stone. Percinet and his mother rescued her, and this time, Graciosa agreed to marry him.

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