The Princess and the Mouse

One day, a magician came to the palace and asked for sanctuary, saying that he was a professor who was being persecuted by his enemies and had nowhere to write an important book.

"Good professor," said the King, "you shall have a room placed at your disposal and everything that you desire, in order that you may finish your great work."

So the magician went on with his spells and magic formulas, pretending to be engrossed in scholarly matters. Every Friday, which was the day of rest in that far land, the magician paid his respects to the King and his court, but secretly he desired to take away the King's throne.

One day he disguised himself as an old woman and walked under the trees in the palace gardens till he met Safia.

"Princess," he said, "let me be your laundress, for I can wash linens and silks as finely as anyone in the world, and I would do it for almost nothing if I could serve Your Highness."

"Good woman," said the Princess Safia, "I can see that you are a poor creature and grieve for your condition. Come to my private quarters and I shall give you some of my linen to wash."

So the disguised magician followed the princess into the palace, and before the girl could see what was happening he bundled her into a laundry bag and ran away as fast as his legs would carry him. He took the Princess into his private room. Muttering a magic spell, he made her as small as a doll, and put her in a cupboard.

The next Friday he went to the court as usual, and found the whole palace in an uproar. "The Princess Safia has vanished, and His Majesty is nearly out of his mind. All the soothsayers have tried to find out through their magical powers where she can be, but none of them have managed it," said the Grand Vizier.

The wicked magician smiled, for he knew that his spell was so strong it would defy all the soothsayers in the land until the day of his death.

The next day passed, and the Queen was weeping in her bower when the magician entered, disguised as a washer-woman. He put her into a laundry bag and took her into his private room. She was turned into a doll no bigger than his thumb.

"Ha-hah!" laughed the magician, "I will now go and capture the King, and will rule the country myself."

So, next day, he waited until the King had gone to rest, tired out with worrying about the Queen's disappearance, and, disguised in his usual way, he captured the King also. He turned the King into a doll no bigger than the Queen, and shut him up in the cupboard too.

Now, with their royal family gone, all the courtiers began to weep and wail, and came to the magician's study in a large party to beg for his advice.

"You are a learned man," said the Grand Vizier, "you must know a lot of things. Will you please tell us what to do ?"

"Until your King and Queen and Princess come again, let me be your ruler," said the magician, and the people agreed. So for a long time the wicked magician ruled over the people and gathered much wealth, for they brought him all the gold in the country. Every now and again he would send out troops to search the length and breadth of the land for news of the missing King and his wife and daughter. But, of course, there was no sign of them.

Now, one day a mouse found its way into the cupboard where the Princess Safia was hidden, and got the surprise of its life when she said, "Mouse, mouse, eat a hole in this cupboard so that I can escape, for the wicked magician who turned me into this shape will never let me out, and I shall die."

"Who are you?" asked the mouse.

"My father is the King, and will reward you handsomely. You shall have free cheese for the rest of your life," said the Princess.

"Allah have mercy!" said the mouse. "His Majesty the King has disappeared, and so has the Queen, and the magician is on the throne."

"Oh no," wept the Princess, "what has happened to them? Can the wicked magician have captured them too?"

"Wait here," said the mouse, "and I will have a look in the rest of the cupboard." And sure enough, he found the King and Queen, turned into tiny dolls, on the top shelf. But in their case they were as stiff as if they had been carved out of wood, because the magician had cast a different spell upon them.

The mouse went back and told the Princess the sad news.

"Alas, alas," the Princess cried, "what am I to do then, for even if I do escape what will happen to me?"

"Princess," said the mouse, "I will help you. I will go and see a Wise Woman who lives in a hollow tree, and tonight I shall come back and tell you what she says."

So the Princess hid once more in the cupboard, and the mouse scuttled off.

Inside a large tree which had seen many winters there lived an old Wise Woman, and the mouse went to her, saying, "Mother, tell me what I should do to help the King's daughter who has been turned into a doll by the magician. She hopes to escape through a hole I shall nibble in a cupboard door. I have discovered that our missing King and Queen are also in the same cupboard, turned into wooden dolls no bigger than your thumb."

"Tell the King's daughter that she must come here when the moon is up and I will help her," said the Wise Woman.

The mouse went back when it was night and nibbled the wood away until it was possible for Safia to get through the hole. As she was so small, it was easy for the Princess to run with the mouse out of the palace without being seen by the guards. When the moon rose and the garden was flooded with light, the tiny Princess went to a cavity in the tree which the mouse had showed her, and peeped in.

"Enter, King's daughter," said the Wise Woman. "I have found out by looking in my magic books the answer to your problem." The mouse waited nearby to see that no one was coming, and Safia sat on a footstool as the old woman read from a large book of magic.

"You must go on until you reach the crossroads, and in a field near by you will see an orange-colored horse, already saddled and bridled for a journey. Jump on his back, after giving him a magic grass-seed to eat."

"Where shall I get the magic grass-seed?" asked the Princess.

"I will give it to you," said the Wise Woman, looking into a drawer.

"What am I to do next, after I have caught the horse?" asked Safia.

"King's daughter, you must whisper into his ear, 孴ake me, Orange Horse, to where the sacred pear tree grows, so that I may bring away a pear from its topmost branch'," said the old woman, putting her book back on the shelf.

"And then shall I regain my proper size?" asked the Princess.

"When the wicked magician is dead and not before shall you turn back into your normal size," said the Wise Woman. "You must mount the orange horse's back once more and ride until you reach the Well of the Green Ogre. Whisper into the horse's right ear and you will arrive there before you know it. Drop the pear right into the depths of the well, for the wicked magician's soul is hidden in that pear, and if it falls into the ogre's den it will be devoured by the ogre, and the magician will die."

"What will happen then?" the Princess wanted to know.

"After that, all the creatures turned into other shapes by the magician will return to their own forms, and all will be as it was before." And the Wise Woman put a grass-seed into her hand.

So the tiny Princess thanked the Wise Woman, said good-bye to the mouse, and ran on in the moonlight until she reached the crossroads.

She saw, just as the old woman had said, a horse which was the color of an orange, with a beautiful golden mane and tail, standing in the field, ready saddled and bridled.

"Orange horse! Orange horse!" called Safia in a low voice. "Here is a magic grass-seed. Take me to the tree where the sacred pears grow, so that I may pick the topmost pear from its branches."

So the orange-colored horse put its head down close to Safia, and she held out the seed, which he swallowed. Then he put his head down again so that she could climb on to his neck, clinging to the golden mane. Soon she was hanging on to the saddle for all she was worth. The horse neighed twice, then, tossing his head, galloped away like the wind.

In less time than it takes to tell, Safia found herself in a beautiful orchard where there were cherry trees, plum trees, and trees with mulberries upon them, but only one pear tree.

"Here it is," said the horse; and standing on the saddle Safia stretched up into the branches. She picked a pear from the topmost branch and put it carefully into the saddlebag.

"Take me to the Well of the Green Ogre," she whispered in the horse's right ear. The orange-colored horse nodded and was off like the wind, his hooves moving so fast they seemed never to touch the ground. There, beside three palm trees, was a well. In the moonlight Safia saw that just inside the well there was an ogre's head as big as a pumpkin, with huge round eyes and a large mouth. She hurriedly took the pear containing the soul of the magician out of the saddlebag, and dropped it right into the Green Ogre's mouth. Instantly he chewed the pear up into tiny pieces, and Safia suddenly found herself growing. She was her own size again -- the wicked magician was dead.

The horse took her back to the crossroads, and just as she was about to thank him, there was a clap of thunder and he disappeared before her eyes.

She hurried to the palace, and then to the room where she knew her mother and father were imprisoned. She found the King and Queen were their normal size again, but very puzzled indeed to find themselves in a cupboard. She quickly explained.

"Call the Captain of the Guard!" the King commanded. "Have the magician arrested, and his head shall be struck from his shoulders."

But when the soldiers went to the royal bedchamber to find the false king, they discovered that he was dead, for the moment the Green Ogre had eaten the pear he had perished, as the Wise Woman had predicted.

That day there was great rejoicing in the palace, and Safia went to thank the Wise Woman who lived in the hollow tree. But of the tree there was no sign -- it had vanished as if it had never been. Safia could scarcely believe her eyes, and was looking round in a puzzled way when she was approached by a tall, handsome young man, dressed in fine clothes.

"Blessings upon you, dear Princess," said he, "for I was the mouse, a victim of enchantment, who nibbled the hole through which you escaped to go upon that journey to find the pear which contained the magician's soul."

"So it was true, and not a dream!" cried Safia. "I came to find the Wise Woman and she has gone."

"She lived in an enchanted tree," ex-plained the young man, "and now that she wishes to be elsewhere the tree has been uprooted and taken there without leaving a sign behind."

"Come with me to my father so that he can thank you," cried Safia.

So the young man went with her, and when they knelt before the King he explained that he was a prince who had been turned into a mouse by the magician.

"You shall stay here and marry my daughter," promised the King, "and rule the kingdom after me, as I have no son."

And so it came to happen, and the wedding feast was celebrated for seven days and seven nights, and Safia and her husband lived happily ever after.