The Prince and the Princess in the Forest

The Prince and the Princess in the Forest is a Danish fairy tale collected by Evald Tang Kristensen (1843–1929) in Æventyr fra Jylland (Danish, "Tales from Jutland") in 1881.Andrew Lang included it in his The Olive Fairy Book (1907).

After the king of Denmark dies, the queen is so inconsolable that her only child, the prince, suggests that they should go to a place on the other side of a forest. They become lost in the woods, but come upon two houses, the first containing a mail shirt and a sword, with a note that said they would keep a man safe from all danger, which the prince, unbeknownst to his mother, takes. The second house contains food and a bed (granting them both food and a place to sleep), but unfortunately it is a robber's den,and the next morning, when the prince is off hunting for the path, the queen is surprised by the robber chief, who tells her that if she wants to live, she must make him king in her husband's place and must kill her son. When the queen protests that she cannot do this, the robber chief tells her to pretend to be ill and send her son after some apples in a forest a mile away, knowing that the forest "was full of wild animals who would tear to pieces any traveller who entered it."

What happens next depends on the version of the story. One version says that the prince fights the forest creatures and wins; Lang's version, however, states that the forest "was full of lions and tigers, and bears and wolves, who came rushing towards him; but instead of springing on him and tearing him to pieces, they lay down on the ground and licked his hands." Once the creatures are no longer a threat, the prince finds the apple tree; when his sword brushes against it, two apples fall. After taking the apples, he starts to leave the wood, but a little black dog leads him to a tiny hole in the hill, which the sword enlarges enough for the prince to enter. A princess of Arabia is chained to an iron pillar within; twelve robbers had captured her and were fighting over who would marry her. She further says that she had been imprisoned there for twenty years. A touch of the prince's sword breaks the chain, and he leads her through the forest to a port containing a ship bound for Arabia, pledging that if he is still alive the following year, he will come to Arabia and wed her. She gives him a ring as a pledge of their promise, and sails home.

The robber smells the apples while the prince is still far away and, deciding that only powerful magic could have saved the prince from the animals, orders the queen to tell the prince that she had dreamed that he had been attacked by wild animals and to ask how he'd survived. The prince tells her about the magic mail shirt and magic sword, which the queen then tells the robber chief, who makes a sleeping draught for the prince and steals the sword and mail shirt, claiming they are his brother's.

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