Wake up, kids! It’s time for another
4:44 AM WONDER TALE
Tonight’s story is called
THE THREE RIBBONS.
A shy princess was once married off to a king far from her own country. The young queen felt lonely in her new home, and wished for children to come into her life. But alas, none came, and the king soon complained that his wife was barren. One day, as she walked past a wastebasket, the queen noticed a peach-pit shaped like an unborn infant. She snatched up the pit and planted it in a pot on her windowsill. Soon it blossomed into a little tree, with three luscious peaches dangling from its branches. The queen ate all three fruits greedily, and within a week, she could feel three little heartbeats inside her newly swollen womb.
Unfortunately, on catching a glimpse of a rare and supremely revolting Moaning slug-bird as it flapped past her window, the queen was severely frightened, and as a result, her three daughters all turned out half-witted, deformed and gnome-like. This caused the young queen no end of anguish. “If only my children were normal and pretty!” she would lament over and over.
One day, an old woman overheard these words while passing through the palace grounds. “There’s no need to cry, your majesty,” she said to the queen. “Your daughters will become as splendid as they ought to be if you follow my advice: In the palace churchyard, amid the crypts of the royals, stands a solitary oak. On one of its higher branches is a nest built by a Copper-billed magpie, that notorious breed that steals only from other birds. Go to this nest now and you’ll find a group of eggs, with one colored differently from the rest. Inside this egg will be three silk ribbons — stolen from the heads of beautiful princesses who died too young, and swallowed by a bird who was in turn robbed by our greedy magpie. Tie these ribbons around the necks of your daughters, and they will become the children you wished for. Go do this now, and tell no one about it!” The queen thanked the old woman from the bottom of her heart, making her take a sack of gold with her before she went away.
Without delay, the queen rushed to the churchyard, climbed the oak, found the egg with the ribbons inside and returned to the palace. But once she had tied the ribbons around each of her daughters’ necks, they immediately lost all of their hair — and nothing else happened to them. Seeing that his offspring were not only deformed idiots but now also hairless, the king promptly annulled his marriage. The former queen was sent to a convent, where she hung herself to end her misery.
“Haw haw! Stupid bitch!” said the old woman, once her friend the magpie had told her the news. She then cackled to herself and touched her privates — and continued at it for nearly a fortnight, so ecstatic was she to have caused such grief.
THE END
