“Our country will flourish when he is King,” it was predicted, and the prince grew into a beautiful boy.
A rivalling King was jealous of their happiness and wealth, and decided to make war on their Kingdom.
“Hide the boy,” the King ordered his Magus before going into battle, and so he hid him in the bud of a rose that grew inside the walls of the castle. The war raged on for many months and eventually the King and Queen were found and killed.
“Now I will reign over this land,” the evil King thought, but the Magus went and fetched the prince from the bud of the flower.
“You are to be King now,” he said to the boy, “and all will be well when you rule.”
A great festival was organised to announce that the prince was taking the throne and becoming King. When the rivalling King found out that the prince was to take the throne, he sent a witch to the prince in the night and she bewitched him.
“Forget yourself,” she whispered into his ear whilst he was asleep, “and forget your own value. You will find satisfaction in nothing, and your hands will be closed to success and accomplishment.” In the morning when the King woke up he looked around and didn’t recognise the palace.
“Where am I?” he asked the maid who came in to bring him his breakfast.
“You are in your castle my Lord.”
“And who am I?”
“You are the King my Lord.” The King shook his head.
“I’m no King and this is not my castle. I was a servant here and now I must be on my way. There are more important things to do and I must do them all!” and with that he got up, put on the oldest clothes he could find and abandoned his Kingdom.
Once he left the castle he met a woodworker next to the road.
“Where are you going?” the woodworker asked.
“I’m looking for my destiny,” the King replied, “do you know what it is?”
“Perhaps you are a woodworker,” he replied. “Come with me and I will teach you everything I know,” and so the Prince went to live with the woodworker who was true to his word. The Prince had a remarkable talent for woodworking and his teacher was impressed. “There is something about him,” he told his wife one night, “I don’t know what it is, but he’s special.” After a couple of months the Prince started having dreams about his old Kingdom and a strange yearning opened up in him.
“I have to go,” he said one day to the woodworker. “Woodwork is not for me. I can't even remember why I started doing it in the first place. It’s not my destiny and so I must leave.”
“It’s a pity,” the woodworker said, “as you were just getting the knack of the thing. He sent the Prince on his way with a couple of coins.
Further down the road he met a shoemaker in a tavern.
“I will teach you to make the best shoes in the district,” the shoemaker promised, and led him to his small homestead not far from there. The next morning he started teaching the Prince his art, and he immediately took to it. “What a talent,” the shoemaker told his wife that night over dinner. “I’m lucky to have found him. And he works for less than the maid!” The King worked diligently for a couple of weeks, but every night he would dream of a castle and a crown and in the morning he would wake up with an ache in his heart.
One day he met a beautiful maiden in the meadow.
“Who are you?” she asked him as he sat down next to her.
“I don’t know anymore. I think I’m a shoemaker, but at night I dream of castles.”
“Then you must be the Prince!” the maiden cried. “You are the lost Prince of this land and it’s your destiny to be King,” and she rejoiced in the knowledge and hugged him and kissed him, for she was a princess and had been searching for him.
“No no,” the Prince said. “I’m but a poor shoemaker and have never lived in a castle.”
“It’s your destiny to be King,” the maiden said, “and I will be your Queen.”
“You’re wrong,” he said, but they kissed in the meadow, and the maiden took the Prince to her castle. “I don’t know why you treat me so well,” the Prince said one day. “I am not as rich as you, I don’t have a house like yours, yet you treat me like a King.”
“That’s because you are one,” the princess said and a tear slipped over her cheek. Perhaps if I love him enough, he will remember himself, she thought, and so she showered him with love, but the Prince would not remember.
One day the Prince went to work and said: “I am not a shoemaker, it’s not my destiny. It’s a silly thing to make shoes and I don’t have a knack for it,” and he thanked the shoemaker for his help and left that place. He wandered around the country side looking for something that felt right, but nothing did. “I’m not sure who I am you see,” he would say to the princess, “I’m either a beggar dreaming that I’m a King, or a King dreaming that I’m a beggar.”
“You are the King of this land,” she said to him again and again, and he would shake his head vehemently, and she would turn away and cry. “Oh where, where is my King? He is here in my house, but he has abandoned himself, and now I can never be the Queen.”
“If you love me like you say you do, you will marry me,” the King said to the maiden. “Let me make you my wife, let’s be a family,” but the maiden refused him.
“I am destined to marry a King, to have a wedding in the palace my Lord. When you remember yourself I will be your Queen.” The Prince felt angry at this and withdrew from her. Soon they started to grow apart.
One morning the King woke up to find the maiden had packed her belongings. “I am leaving,” she said to him. “You have abandoned your Kingdom and yourself, and so you have abandoned me, and even though you live here with me in this house you are only the ghost of the King that I love. Nothing ever satisfies you my Lord, because you are not yourself, and I am not satisfied my Lord, because I am a princess and it’s my destiny to be a Queen,” and she cried and cried and then left him there to wander the land alone, for she too had become lost.
She travelled to far away lands and saw many great things, but always the memory of the Prince stayed with her. “He is my King,” she said to people, “but he can’t remember himself. And now I am nothing, for I am his Queen.” She walked and walked and travelled by boat and cart, drifting from place to place, but the ache in her heart wouldn’t leave. She had seen her own reflection in his eyes and couldn’t forget about it. One morning she woke up and looked around her and said: “Where am I? And who am I? I dreamt that I was a Queen, but now I wake up in rags,” and so she got up and went back to her own Kingdom where she reigned alone, but always looking for the King, hoping that he would return onto her, and that he would remember himself.
THE END
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