As she spoke a band of lovely fairies came up and offered her amber baskets full of fruit, but when she held out her hands to them they glided away, and she could feel nothing when she tried to touch them.
This is never adequately explained and seems strangely nightmarish.
“Oh!” she cried, “what can they be? Whom am I with?” and she began to cry.
At this instant the King of the Sheep came back to her, and was so distracted to find her in tears that he could have torn his wool.
“What is the matter, lovely Princess?” he cried. “Has anyone failed to treat you with due respect?”
“Oh! no,” said Miranda; “only I am not used to living with sprites and with sheep that talk, and everything here frightens me. It was very kind of you to bring me to this place, but I shall be even more grateful to you if you will take me up into the world again.”
Take me to a place where the weather does not turn to seafood, I beg of you!
“Do not be afraid,” said the Wonderful Sheep; “I entreat you to have patience, and listen to the story of my misfortunes. I was once a king, and my kingdom was the most splendid in the world. My subjects loved me, my neighbors envied and feared me. I was respected by everyone, and it was said that no king ever deserved it more.”
He’s modest, too!
“I was very fond of hunting, and one day, while chasing a stag, I left my attendants far behind; suddenly I saw the animal leap into a pool of water, and I rashly urged my horse to follow it, but before we had gone many steps I felt an extraordinary heat, instead of the coolness of the water; the pond dried up, a great gulf opened before me, out of which flames of fire shot up, and I fell helplessly to the bottom of a precipice.
“I gave myself up for lost, but presently a voice said: “Ungrateful Prince, even this fire is hardly enough to warm your cold heart!’
“‘Who complains of my coldness in this dismal place?’ I cried.
“‘An unhappy being who loves you hopelessly,’ replied the voice, and at the same moment the flames began to flicker and cease to burn, and I saw a fairy, whom I had known as long as I could remember, and whose ugliness had always horrified me. She was leaning upon the arm of a most beautiful young girl, who wore chains of gold on her wrists and was evidently her slave.
“‘Why, Ragotte,’ I said, for that was the fairy’s name, ‘what is the meaning of all this? Is it by your orders that I am here?’
“‘And whose fault is it,’ she answered, ‘that you have never understood me until now? Must a powerful fairy like myself condescend to explain her doings to you who are no better than an ant by comparison, though you think yourself a great king?’
“‘Call me what you like,’ I said impatiently; ‘but what is it that you want — my crown, or my cities, or my treasures?’
“‘Treasures!’ said the fairy, disdainfully. ‘If I chose I could make any one of my scullions richer and more powerful than you. I do not want your treasures, but,’ she added softly, ‘if you will give me your heart — if you will marry me — I will add twenty kingdoms to the one you have already; you shall have a hundred castles full of gold and five hundred full of silver, and, in short, anything you like to ask me for.’
“‘Madam Ragotte,’ said I, ‘when one is at the bottom of a pit where one has fully expected to be roasted alive, it is impossible to think of asking such a charming person as you are to marry one! I beg that you will set me at liberty, and then I shall hope to answer you fittingly.’
I will give the prince credit for thinking on his feet here.
“‘Ah!’ said she, ‘if you really loved me you would not care where you were — a cave, a wood, a foxhole, a desert, would please you equally well. Do not think that you can deceive me; you fancy you are going to escape, but I assure you that you are going to stay here and the first thing I shall give you to do will be to keep my sheep — they are very good company and speak quite as well as you do.
“As she spoke she advanced, and led me to this plain where we now stand, and showed me her flock, but I paid little attention to it or to her.
“To tell the truth, I was so lost in admiration of her beautiful slave that I forgot everything else,
Oh my god, you’re a moron. Look, I realize common wisdom has it that men think about sex seven hundred times a day or some ridiculous number like that, but you couldn’t go ten minutes, with an evil fairy standing in front of you, without tuning her out to fantasize about her slave girl? Dude. How can you possibly have run a kingdom?
and the cruel Ragotte, perceiving this, turned upon her so furious and terrible a look that she fell lifeless to the ground.
“At this dreadful sight I drew my sword and rushed at Ragotte, and should certainly have cut off her head had she not by her magic arts chained me to the spot on which I stood;
That faint thudding sound is me banging my head quietly on my desk.
all my efforts to move were useless, and at last, when I threw myself down on the ground in despair, she said to me, with a scornful smile: “‘I intend to make you feel my power. It seems that you are a lion at present, I mean you to be a sheep.’
“So saying, she touched
