The princess and the giant

The princess and the giant

                                                              Story by

                          Bhupendra Kumar Dave

 Once upon a time, there lived a king and queen with their only daughter --- the princess Honey as she was called because of her sweet and pleasing behaviour. Their palace had beautiful garden full of colourful flowers and heavily laden fruit trees.

The day the fairies saw this garden they decided to visit it every night and enjoy playing right up to the sunrise.

The fragrance of the flowers also attracted a giant. He had huge nostrils and therefore inhaled all the fragrance, leaving nothing for others. The giant thus enjoyed his sleep in the garden, but his loud snoring was not liked by the rabbits that had built their beautiful city by digging the soft soil of the garden.

One night the giant thought of peeping through one of the windows of the palace. There he saw the pretty princess sleeping on a cozy bed. He felt jealous of the comfort that the princess was enjoying because the place where was sleeping was a rough ground.

One night he squeezed his fatty rubber like body and entered through the window with great difficulty. There he picked the princess and dumped her on the floor. He then climbed the bed. As soon as he pulled the silky quilt to cover himself, he fell into deep sleep.

The princess woke up and saw beautiful fairies flying outside the window. She came closer to the open window and noticed that the fairies were all laughing, playing and enjoying in the garden. In order to draw the attention of the fairies the princess took out her golden ring and threw it out of the window. The ring fell on the green grass below and went rolling till it found a hole in the garden.

The fairies had seen the ring dropping out from the window, but on seeing the princess at the window they were so captivated by her beauty shining in the moonlight that they did not care to notice the disappearance of the ring.

The fairies came closer to the window and requested the princess to come out and join them. A fairy put her magic wand near the sill of the window and asked the princess to catch. So the princess came out and played the whole night with the fairies. Before leaving the garden, the fairies put the princess back into the window.

The giant however did not notice this. He used to go out of the window in the morning and catch the rabbits in large number to satisfy his hunger. The rabbits therefore found out a big drum and placed it over the hole that was actually the entrance point of their city dug under the garden. It was this hole in which the ring of the princess had fallen. This giant like all other giants in the world had no brain and therefore failed to locate the entrance gate of the rabbit city. He was lazy too and took no pains to find food for himself. Being hungry he would have become lean and weak, but the sweet sleep that the soft quilt provided restored his health.

The princess too after the wakeful night used to sleep during the whole day.

One evening the fairies did not come exactly at the sunset. The giant had already gone to sleep and was snoring aloud as usual.

The princess came to the window and in her melodious voice sang a song for the fairies:-

Come, come all my dear fairies

Come to play with me

Come to eat the sweet cherries

Sing ’n dance for me.

          The fairies came and straight way flew towards the window to kiss the princess for her sweet and melodious song.

          That night the fairies danced to their heart’s content as the princess sang beautiful songs for them one after the other. The birds too came out of their nests and their sweet tune like an orchestra reverberated in the garden.

          The giant got disturbed and jumped out of the window. Just below he saw the drum, so he plucked two branches of a tree and began to beat the drum at random. He went on beating the drum so harshly that it torn open. The rabbits thought that an earthquake had come, so they all jumped out the hole, hitting the jaw of the giant who was still sitting near the drum. The sudden attack perplexed the giant. With his face twisted due the continuous bombardment he looked more heinous. He somehow jumped back and closing the window, went to sleep.

          There was absolute chaos in the garden. All the birds had gone back to their nests and the fairies had no courage to face the giant. Only the rabbits because of their unity stayed like the courageous army giving full cover to the princess and protecting her.

The fairies on realising that they have left the princess alone where the giant was in all his fury, turned back. On return they saw the courageous rabbits and said ‘sorry’ to each and every rabbit.

       The fairies then settled down to make a plan to get rid of the giant immediately, but they found themselves helpless. The weather was also not cooperating. It became very cold. The princess started shivering and fell nearly unconscious.

          ‘Oh Honey wake up,’ cried all the fairies.

‘Oh, God come and take care of our honey,’ they prayed.

On hearing the word ‘honey’ repeatedly, the honeybees residing in the garden became alert and their queen directed one of her dearest bee to go and find out what was the trouble with the fairies.

On hearing the whole story the bee learnt that the name of the lovely princess was ‘Honey’ so she flew back immediately and brought fresh honey to revive the princess.

The bee also conveyed the massage that her queen had sent for the fairies and the rabbits. The queen had said that her volunteers will overnight build a honeycomb just in front of the window and they will smother the giant as soon as he tries to come out disturbing the honeycomb.

            It was a good trick suggested by the queen of bees and worked well. As soon as the giant tried to come out of the window, the honeycomb got disturbed. It was a signal for the bees to attack the giant and kill him with their stings.

The giant fell down from the window. Honeycomb had also come tumbling down with the fatty giant. The ants residing in the garden got the smell of honey and came in thousands and assembled around the giant.  

The attack of the bees and the ants was too shocking for the giant and he died withering in pains. 

The princess regained her consciousness.  A rabbit had brought the ring of the princess to handover the same immediately on her revival. The princess thanked the rabbit.

Honey has revived ‘the princess Honey’

For princess Honey is as sweet as honey.’,

Thus the singing the bees jubilantly flew back to convey the good news to their queen.

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