Guided Sleep Meditation & Sleep Hypnosis from Sleep Cove - A Romantic Fairytale - The Hundredth Princess

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Starting point is 00:00:46 please go to sleepcove.com slash support. That's sleepcove.com slash support. If you can't support the show right now, please subscribe with the bell to get alerts on all new free content thank you have you ever gazed in wonder at the great pyramid have you marvelled at the golden face of Tudankhamun

Starting point is 00:01:16 or admired the delicate features of Queen Nefertiti if you have you'll probably like the History of Egypt podcast every week we explore tales of this ancient culture The history of Egypt is available wherever you get your podcasting fix. Come, let me introduce you to the world of ancient Egypt. Welcome to Sleep Cove with Christopher Fitten. Tonight, we have a romantic fairy tale story called The Hundredth Princess. This fairy tale is about a beautiful woman who lives in the forest,

Starting point is 00:02:03 the green enchantress. who decides to take it into our own hands to bring an end to the king's frivolous hunting of small animals in the woods. When her attempt at putting an enchantment on the king fails, she begins to lose faith in her enchantress abilities. Written by Evan and Sharp, who was a well-known figure in the British suffrage movement, her work has become known to have a deeper meaning and approached the readers who were often children as being on the same level of the author. I really enjoyed reading this romantic tale and it is one of my favourite fairy tales I've read and I hope you too enjoy it tonight.

Starting point is 00:02:57 I want to thank Maya Hannah who left this review. truly my fave. Every night you put me to sleep like a baby. The meditations are honestly 10 out of 10. I have never found a sleep podcast that is quite as good as yours. Thank you. P.S. My cat loves you just as much as I do. Thanks, Maya, so much for your review. And I'm glad you're getting some good sleep as well as your cat. Leaving reviews really help promote the podcast to more people. So if you're able to, please leave a five-store review on Spotify and Apple, and remember to follow the show by pressing the plus button on your app. Also, if you think someone would benefit from the show, please send them a link.

Starting point is 00:03:52 So let's begin. The Hundredth Princess by Evelyn Sharp. There was once a king, who was so fond of hunting, that all the rabbits in his kingdom were born with their hearts in their mouths. The king would have been extremely surprised to hear this, for of course he never hunted anything so small as a rabbit, but rabbits are foolish enough for anything, as all the world knows. The rabbits of the king's forest would never have had a happy moment to this day

Starting point is 00:04:35 if the green enchantress had not suddenly taken it into her head to try and bewitch the king. Now the green enchantress was very beautiful indeed. She sat all day long at the foot of an old lime tree in the royal forest, and she was dressed in all green, and she had small white hands and great black black. eyes and quantities and quantities of dark red hair. Largest wild ball down to the smallest baby rabbit was a friend of hers, and it made her dreadfully unhappy when she saw them being killed just to amuse the king. So it was no wonder that she made up her mind at last to try and bewitch him.

Starting point is 00:05:36 and the first time she tried was on a fine summer evening, and the royal party was riding home from the hunt. It had been an exceedingly dull hunt that day, for the king had found nothing whatever to kill, and this made him so exceedingly irritable that his followers took care to keep a good way behind him as they rode along. That was how it happened

Starting point is 00:06:09 when the king was riding quite alone, when a voice suddenly from the side of the road. Good evening, king, said the voice, have you had a good sport today? The king pulled up his horse

Starting point is 00:06:27 and looked round, and when he saw a wonderful-looking girl all dressed in green, sitting at the foot of a foot of a little, an old lime tree, he did not know quite what to say. He knew very little about girls, for he had spent all his life in killing things, but he had a sort of idea that the girl in green was not much like the princesses who came to court. I have had no sport all day, he said at last, all the animals were hiding today.

Starting point is 00:07:07 No doubt they were, said the green enchantress. So would you be, if people came hunting you with great horrid spears and things. She was really laughing at him, but the king had no idea of it. He only looked at her more solemnly than before. What do you know about it? Perhaps I know more about this forest than you know about your whole kingdom, answered the green enchantress. She laughed outright, but the king did not mind in the least. Perhaps you do, he said simply, I never pretended to know much.

Starting point is 00:07:58 I do not even know why you are laughing. Will you tell me? I am bluffing because you know so little, she answered mysteriously. There is so much I could tell if it pleased me, Rabbi of the King. When it please you to tell me now? I don't feel inclined to tell you now, said the green enchantress. How strange! exclaimed the King. If I had anything to tell, I should tell it.

Starting point is 00:08:38 at once, but then I am when will you tell it to me? Next time you come, laughed the girl in green. Next time, said the king, why should I come twice when once would do? She did not trouble to answer that at all, old lime tree. The girl in green had completely disappeared when his father was. was came riding up to him. There is a green enchantress, Your Majesty,

Starting point is 00:09:24 answered the chief huntsman. I have never seen her, but they say she is the most beautiful woman in the whole world. Indeed, said the king in surprise. And he went home and spent the home. I tried to remember what the girl

Starting point is 00:09:44 in green had not forgotten, however, so the very next morning he started out long before any was first as he could in the direction of the old lime tree. The wild bulls and the other animals were most surprised to see him there so early in the day and they followed him in twos and threes to see what he was going to do. As for the king, he strode on over the june. chewy grass and never noticed them at all. Bracken on either side of him was alive with trembling

Starting point is 00:10:40 little rabbits or squeaking to one another with their hearts in their mouths. We shall certainly be killed if the king sees us. Whilst he came to the old lime tree at the side of the road sat the wonderful girl with her dark red hair falling round her down to the ground the king would have taken off his crown

Starting point is 00:11:13 to her if he had not come out without it but he made her a low bow instead and the green entrant dress began to laugh dear me she said

Starting point is 00:11:29 why have you come back again They told me that you were the most beautiful woman in the world. So I came to see if it was true, said the king. You are here. Do you think it is true? As the girl in green. I suppose so, said the king doubtfully. But I don't know much about girls.

Starting point is 00:11:56 If you were a wild ball, now or not a wild ball, cried the green. enchantress, and she was so angry at being compared to a wild ball, that she promptly threw a spell over the king and tried to turn him into a wild ball. But the king went to idea that he was expected to be a wild ball at that very moment. When are you going to tell me all the things you know? he asked her, smilingly, I have forgotten what there was to tell, said the green enchantress sulkingly. She got up and walked away among the trees.

Starting point is 00:12:52 The king wondered what he had done to offend her, and he tried to remember whether he had ever offended any of the princesses who came to court, but as none of the princesses who came to court ever thought of showing their feelings, he would not have known if he had. Meanwhile, the green enchantress was feeling very cross indeed. What is the use of being an enchantress if people refuse to be enchanted? She grumbled, and she ran off as fast as she could to find her godfather, the magician Smilax, for nothing ever put her in such a good temper as to visit her godfather.

Starting point is 00:13:47 Now Smilax was the most amable magician the world has ever contained a cottage with a green door and a white doorstep and a red chimney pot. and he did not look like a magician at all the same. Sminox was by no means a stupid magician, as the rest of the story will show. What is the matter? he asked, when his godchild ran in at the door. Do you want me to teach you a new spell? No, indeed, cried the green enchantress.

Starting point is 00:14:33 I am tired of spells, I want something much better. Well, well, said the kind old magician. Let us hear what it is all about, and then we'll see what we can do. It was impossible to go on being cross when anyone was as good-tempered as Smilax. So his good child climbed at once onto the arm of his chair and sat there with her little white feet dangling, well she told him who would not turn into a wild ball.

Starting point is 00:15:15 It's not hard, pouted the green enchantress, that I cannot bewitch the king. Some kings are easier to bewitch than others, remarked the magician wisely. Now what is you want me to do for you? Is it not hard, pounded the green enchantress, that I cannot bewitch the king? Some kings are easier to bewitch than others, remarked the magician wisely. Now what is it you want me to do for you?

Starting point is 00:15:54 I want you to make me into a princess, said his godchild promptly. Then I can go to court and dance with the king, only think of it, and she pretended that the poker was the king and danced round the room with it, to show how she should behave when she got to court. That's easily done, said Smilax. You shall go to court and dance with the king if you like. I will make you so fine a princess that the king will not be able to distinguish you from all the other princesses in the palace. But I don't want to be like the other princess's godfather. I want to be a real princess, objected the green enchantress.

Starting point is 00:16:46 Smilax shook his head. Then I cannot help you, he said. Nobody can make you a real princess, not even the fairy queen herself. Real princesses make themselves, and that is a very princesses. very different matter. Shall I never go to court then? asked his godchild with tears in her eyes. Of course you shall, said Smilax.

Starting point is 00:17:18 Can you not go to court without being a princess? There is a back door to the palace as well as a front one, and any ordinary person can get in at the back door, but you must give up your door. witchcraft the moment you set foot in the palace, for it is impossible to be an ordinary person and a bewitching one at the same moment. I don't mind that, said his godchild. If I cannot bewitch the king, I do not want to be an enchantress anymore. I will go to the palace this very minute. And so she did, and that was how it came about that there was a new scuddery-made at the palace

Starting point is 00:18:10 and one fine morning the king met her all as he took his stroll in the garden after breakfast. It is extremely probable that the king would have not noticed her at all if she had not happened to be wary a bright green handkerchief tied over her dark red. red hair. He felt sure that he had seen that bright green and that dark red summer before. So he stopped and looked at her. What are you doing? he asked her with a smile. I'm picking beads for the king's dinner, answered the little scullery maid. How extremely kind of you! exclaimed the king, who had always supposed that the

Starting point is 00:19:05 beans for his dinner picked themselves. Will you let me look at them? She held out her basket and the king pinked inside and found it full of bright scarlet flowers. Are those beans never seen anything so charming before? I hope so, said the little scullery maid with an anxious sigh, for she knew no more about it than the king and was dreadfully afraid of being scolded

Starting point is 00:19:46 for picking the wrong thing. Indeed, she had hardly finished speaking when the angry voice of the chief cook called her from the back even that I was going to have beans for dinner, observed the king in a disappointed tone. Your Majesty has just a... helped himself to beans, said the Prime Minister, when he had recovered from his surprise at the

Starting point is 00:20:42 King's remarked, Your Majesty, said the Prime Minister, who had never seen a bean growing in his life, but could not possibly have owned such a thing before. Let me have my beans before they are cooked in future, said the King, and the Prime Minister hastily made a note of it at 99, delightful praise, princesses to dance with. But none of them had dark red hair. And when he had finished dancing with their 99th, he once more turned reproachfully to the Prime Minister, is the 100th Princess, he demanded impatiently. The Prime Minister knew no more about the 100th Princess than he had known about beans, and he wished he had gone to bed instead of coming to the court ball to be worried by the king's questions. He was too sleepy, however, to invent any more answers,

Starting point is 00:22:15 so he had to tell the truth he would have made a much better Prime Minister if he had always been too sleepy to invent things that were not true, had nothing to do with the story. I have never heard of the hundredth princess, Your Majesty, he said wearily. Would it please, Your Majesty, to tell me what she is likely to be ex-imprisoned in one? I never heard of her myself until this morning, said the King. She has wonderful dark redness. She has wonderful dark red red hair, and she is so sweet and so kind that she actually picks the vegetables for my dinner. The Prime Minister, positively yawned in the King's presence for the first time in his life, noticed that he looked tired and sent him home to bed, which was certainly a much nicer place

Starting point is 00:23:57 to send him than a dungeon. And as for the Prime Minister, He went on speaking the truth to the end of his days. The next morning the king hastened into a garden the moment he had swallowed his breakfast. The chief huntsman met him just as he was leaving the palace and asked him what time it would please him to start for the hunt. Hunt, cried the king impatiently, what hunt?

Starting point is 00:24:31 I am going to pit the hunt. vegetables for my dinner, and that is ever so much more important, and he ran down the steps across the lawn as never a king ran before. The little scullery maid was wandering around the gooseby bushes with a very disconsolate look on her face. She reached a stuff the king's ducks with, she said, hurrying towards her. but I don't know a bit what it is like, and how can I be expected to pick things which I don't know what to pick? Look so distressed, said the king, for his eyes,

Starting point is 00:25:22 and I do not mind whether my ducks are stuffed or scullery-made, who of course had known all the while that he was the king. The chief cook will beat me if I do not fill my basket it with Sage, look, this is where he beat me yesterday for bringing the wrong beans. She rolled of her sleeve and showed him a tiny black speck on her dainty white arm. To be sure, it was not much of a bruise, but when one has been an enchantress all one's life, it is a little hard to be beaten for not knowing enough to overcome with distress, and he stooped and kissed their little black mark tenderly, and that, as everyone knows, is the only way to kill a bruise.

Starting point is 00:26:37 Come with me, some sage will be stuffed, and the chief cook will not so the king, and the scurgery maid wandered all over the kitchen, garden and hunted for sage. And the king knew just as much about it as the scullery maid. And the scullery maid knew as much as the king. And that was just exactly nothing at all. There is no doubt that the king's ducks would never have got stuffed that day. Suddenly stumbled, does it not smell sweet? exclaimed. the little scudry made, and she picked a whole handful of it to the key. Surely, cried the key, anything so charming as this must be the very thing we are looking for.

Starting point is 00:27:54 The angry voice of the chief cook sounded once more from the back door, so they did not stop to think any more about it, but filled the basket with rosemary. as fast as they could. It scampered that little stood, were stuffed with. They were only two people in the palace who enjoyed their dinner that day, who sat at the head of the royal table, and had three helpings of roast duck, and the other was the little scullery maid,

Starting point is 00:29:04 who sat on the back doorstep and ate the scrapings of all the plates out of a big, Never forgot that dinner as long as they lived rising. For ducks that are stuffed with rosemary are surely ducks to be remembered. Every day, the chief cook sent their little scullery maid into the garden to pick some. To be sure it was a lot of trouble to take, just to please the chief cook, and it would have been far simpler to have cut off his head then and there, but neither the king nor the scullery made nicer to go on meeting each other among the gooseberry bushes,

Starting point is 00:30:37 and it certainly saved the expense of an execution. Before long, people began to wonder what had come over the king. He never went near the Royal Forest and when he was not in the kitchen garden he was in the library looking for books that would tell him the difference between a banana and the best place

Starting point is 00:31:05 to find a cauliflower their chief huntsman and all the other huntsmen had never been so dull in their lives but the wild balls and all the other animals were as happy as the day was long. Even the rabbits began to pop up their heads waiting to kill them. Truly, they squeaked to one another.

Starting point is 00:31:41 The green enchantress must have bewitched a king after all, and perhaps they were not far wrong, though the same thing cannot go on forever. And one morning, when the king hastened out into the garden as usual, the Scudery maid saw at once that he had something important to say, is to be a ball tomorrow, he told her. The Prime Minister says so, and there will be 99 princesses there besides yourself. Little Scudery maid shook her head. I shall not be there, she said, I am only a scullery-maid, and no one not even the fairy queen can make me into a real princess. You are the hundredth princess, declared the king.

Starting point is 00:32:52 Ninety-nine other princesses have never picked the vegetables for the king's dinner, sighed the little scullery-maid. They would never do anything half so sweet. nor so kind, said the king. Their ninety-nine other princesses continued the little scullery-maid, looking down at her crumpled print gown, have never worn such an old frock as mine, nor how they ever looked so beautiful, all so charming, said the king. The angry voice of the chief cook sounded as well.

Starting point is 00:33:34 loudly from the back door, and their little scudery maid turned to run down the path as usual. But this time the king caught her by the hand and held her back. Will you come to the ball and dance with me? He asked coaxingly. She looked very sad. I am not a real princess, you see, she sighed. The angry voice of the chief cook sounded louder than before. She pulled away her hand and escaped to the ball.

Starting point is 00:34:17 The king shouted after her, perhaps over her shoulder. And the next moment, it was truly a strange way of accepting an invitation to the king's bull. But then she was the hundredth princess, and perhaps. Perhaps that made all the difference. It was a most magnificent, just as the king finished dancing with the last of the 99 princesses. A great hubbub was heard in the hall outside, and into the room ran their little schoonery maid, and after her ran the chief cook with a soup ladle in his hand, and after them both came the Prime Minister

Starting point is 00:35:15 and the Chief Huntsman and the Lord High Executioner and all the other people who were in the hall because they did not know how to dance. Who are you? cried their 99 princesses as their little scudery maid stood in front of them all in her crumpled print gown with her green handkerchief tied over her head

Starting point is 00:35:43 "'Who are you?' echoed all the courtiers and all the pages who happened to be there. "'She is nothing but a scudery made,' cried the chief cook, brandishing his soup-ladle. "'She is the green enchantress,' gasped the chief huntsman. "'You are all talking rubbish,' said the Prime Minister, who had certainly lost some of his manners since he took to speaking the truth. Anyone can see she is the hundredth princess. But it was the king who really settled the matter.

Starting point is 00:36:26 She is the queen, of course. He said gently, and came and took her by the hand, contradicting him, real princesses have to make themselves. It is quite certain that any king, princesses, saw how charming their little queen was. They crowded around her with one accord and gave her 99 kisses. So they were real princesses after all. Tell us, they begged her afterwards, are you really the green enchantress? Oh no, she said. I gave up being an enchantress. when I found I could not bewitch the king.

Starting point is 00:37:19 Why did you want to bewitch me, dearest, as the king in amazement? Because you were so fond of killing things, she said. Then I will never kill anything again, as long as I live, vowed the king. And that is the end of the story. For when the little rabbits heard that the king had given up hunting, they all gave a great gulp and swallowed their hearts. And after that, there was no one in the kingdom who was not happy, for everybody's heart was in the right place.

Guided Sleep Meditation & Sleep Hypnosis from Sleep Cove - A Romantic Fairytale - The Hundredth Princess

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