The Goose Girl
A true princess, a false maid, a faithful horse, and a secret the wind helped reveal
Page 1
Once upon a time there was an old queen whose husband had died, and she had one lovely daughter. When the princess grew up, she was promised in marriage to a prince in a far-off kingdom. So the day came for her to travel there to be wed, and her mother sent her off with rich gifts, a waiting-maid to attend her, and a wonderful horse named Falada who could speak. As they parted, the loving old queen gave her daughter a last keepsake and her blessing, and the young princess, both excited and a little afraid to be leaving home, mounted Falada and set out with her maid along the long road toward her new life and her unknown husband.
Page 2
The road was long, and after many hours the princess grew thirsty and asked the maid to fetch her some water from a clear stream they were passing. But the maid, who was proud and growing bolder, rudely refused, telling the princess to get it herself. So the gentle princess climbed down and drank from the stream with her own hands. This happened a second time, and the maid grew bolder still, until at last she declared that she would be the one to arrive at the palace as the bride, and the princess should take her place as a servant. Being alone, far from home, and too gentle to fight, the frightened princess had no choice but to agree, and even to promise she would never tell a living soul.
Page 3
By the time they reached the far kingdom, the maid had made the princess change clothes with her, so that it was the maid who rode up to the palace in the fine gown, and the true princess who followed behind in a plain servant's dress. The young prince and his father the old king came out to welcome the bride with great joy, and the prince lifted the false maid down from her horse, believing her to be his promised princess. The real princess was left standing quietly in the courtyard, a stranger and a servant in the very place where she should have been honoured as a queen — but she kept her promise, and said not a single word of the truth.
Page 4
The false bride soon grew afraid, for she knew that the wise horse Falada had seen everything and might somehow give away her secret. So she asked that the horse be sent far away from the palace, to a distant farm where no one would hear him speak. When the true princess heard that her faithful Falada — her last friend from home — was to be taken from her, her heart nearly broke. She slipped down to the stable-yard to say goodbye, stroking his nose and whispering her thanks, and dear Falada nuzzled her gently as if to promise that, somehow, the truth would not stay hidden for ever. Then he was led away down the road, and the princess was left more alone than ever.
Page 5
Having no place at the palace, the true princess was set to work as a goose-girl, driving the royal geese out to pasture each morning with a young goose-boy named Conrad. Though the work was humble and she missed her home sorely, she bore it all with patience and never once complained. Each day, as she sat to comb out her beautiful long golden hair in the meadow, the goose-boy Conrad would try to snatch a shining strand for himself — but the princess would softly call up a little wind, and the obliging breeze would whisk Conrad's hat away across the field, so that he had to run and chase it while she finished combing her hair in peace. It became their strange daily game, out among the geese and the wildflowers.
Page 6
Each morning, as the goose-girl drove her flock out through the old town gate toward the pasture, her road passed the edge of the distant farm where faithful Falada now lived. And every day she would pause there a moment to call a gentle greeting across the field to her dear old friend, and Falada, hearing her voice, would lift his noble head and whinny back to her — the one small comfort in her long days. It was a sad and tender little ritual, the exiled princess and the banished horse greeting one another across a meadow each dawn, each the other's last link to the home and the life that had been so unjustly taken from them both.
Page 7
Now the young prince, though he was betrothed to the false bride, could not help but notice the quiet goose-girl who drove the geese past the palace each day. There was something about her gentle, graceful bearing — something that did not match her plain dress and humble work at all — and his father the old king noticed it too. The goose-boy Conrad, meanwhile, had begun to grumble to the king about the strange girl he worked with: how she talked to the wind and made it blow his hat away, and how she greeted a far-off horse as if it were an old friend. The more the old king heard, the more curious he became, until he resolved to discover for himself just who this remarkable goose-girl really was.
Page 8
The old king, being wise, guessed that the goose-girl was bound by some promise never to tell a living soul her trouble. So he gently told her that if she could not speak her sorrow to any person, she might at least go and pour out her whole heart to the big old iron stove in the castle kitchen, where no one would hear. The princess, grateful, crept to the cold iron stove and, believing herself quite alone, told it everything — how she was the true princess, how the wicked maid had forced the swap by the stream and stolen her place, and how she bore it all in silence. But the clever old king had hidden himself just outside, and through the stovepipe he heard every single word of her sad and secret tale.
Page 9
Now the old king knew the whole truth. He had the goose-girl dressed once more in royal robes, so that her true beauty and bearing shone out for all to see, and he brought her before the astonished court. There he gently revealed what he had learned: that this was the real princess, and the proud bride was nothing but a treacherous maid who had stolen her place upon the road. The false maid, seeing that her secret was out, went pale and could say nothing in her defence. The young prince, overjoyed to learn the truth, took the true princess by the hand at last, and the kind old king, rather than any harsh punishment, simply had the false maid sent away from the kingdom in disgrace, never to trouble them again.
Page 10
And so everything was set right at last. The young prince and the true princess were married in the grandest and happiest celebration the kingdom had ever seen, and faithful Falada was brought home from the distant farm to stand in a place of honour, groomed and garlanded, as beloved by everyone as he had always deserved to be. The whole city turned out to cheer the gentle princess who had borne so much injustice with such patience and had never once broken her word. From that day she was loved throughout the land as a kind and true queen — and she and the prince, with faithful Falada never far away, lived long and happily together for all their days.
About this story
- Audience: kids (ages 6–12)
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