“Do not think I have always been a cat. My father was a king, and had
six kingdoms. He loved my mother dearly, and let her do just as she
wished. She liked best to travel and to see new sights. One day she
heard of a distant country where the fairies had a garden, and in this
garden was the most delicious fruit ever eaten.
“She wished at once to taste this fruit, and so she set off for the
country. She came to a noble palace and knocked at the gate. No one came
out. She waited. No one appeared anywhere in sight. But over the garden
wall she saw the fruit.
“My mother bade her servants pitch her tent close by the gate. There she
stayed six weeks. Yet she saw no one go in or out. She was so vexed and
so disappointed that at the end of six weeks she fell sick.
“One night, when she was almost dead, she opened her eyes and saw an old
woman, small and ugly. It was one of the fairies who owned the garden.
This old woman was sitting in a chair by the bed, and spoke to my
mother.
“‘Why do you come here for our fruit?’ she asked. ‘My sisters and I do
not like it at all. We did not mean you should have any. But now you are
very ill, and we do not want you to die here; you may have all you want,
if you will give us what we ask and then go away.’
“‘Oh,’ said my mother,’ I will give you everything I have, to the half
of my kingdom, if you will only give me the fruit.’
“‘Very well. You will have a child. When the child is born, give her to
us. We will take care of her, and she shall be a beautiful princess.’
“‘That is pretty hard,’ said my mother, ‘but I must have the fruit, or I
shall die. So the child shall be yours.’
“Then my mother rose and dressed, and went into the garden. Here she ate
her fill. Besides, she ordered four thousand mules to be loaded with the
fruit, for it was of a kind that would never spoil. Thus she traveled
back to my father. He was overjoyed to see her, and she said nothing of
the promise she had given.
“By and by, however, she grew sad, and my father asked her what
troubled her. Then she told him the whole story. At first he was greatly
troubled, but he began to think how he should prevent the fairies from
getting his child.
“As soon as I was born he had me taken to the top of a high tower. There
were twenty flights of stairs leading up to the room in which I was
placed. A door was at the foot of each flight, and was locked, and my
father kept the key. He did not mean that any one should get at me.
“When the fairies heard of this, they were very angry. They sent forth a
great dragon, and the dragon breathed forth fire, and burnt up the grass
and trees. It was very fierce, too, and killed men, women, and children.
So my father was filled with dismay, and sent word that the fairies
should have me.”