Three Aunties

Retold by Tim J. Myers • Illustrated by Anna Bron

L O N G A G O I N Norway a princess grew up in a

rugged coastal kingdom. Her mother died at the girl’s birth,

but her father always loved her, and he raised her almost

like a son—so instead of just the manners of a princess, she

learned all the skills of life, and wisdom besides.

When she turned eighteen, her father asked her to

marry the prince of a rich inland kingdom. “Our rocky

soil isn’t good for farming, and our people are poor,”

he told her. “The prince’s family will pay a huge dowry

for a wife they find worthy, which I will use to help my

subjects.” And since this was how marriages were arranged

in those days, and because the princess loved her people,

she agreed.

On the appointed day she appeared in the throne room,

dressed in plain traveling clothes and carrying a walking staff.

“Shouldn’t we send you in our best coach with

attendants and such?” her father asked.

“No,” she said, “that’s too much fuss. I’d rather walk and

get to know the land I will one day rule with my husband.”

A DOWRY IS AN AMOUNT OF MONEY OR PROPERTY GIVEN UPON MARRIAGE.

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Trusting her judgment, the king embraced his daughter

warmly, and she set out.

A T S U N S E T O N the second day the princess was

climbing a mountain trail when she heard someone talking

loudly. Crouching behind a boulder, she listened.

“This bogwater soup is terrible!” a great gruff voice

shouted.

Peeking around the rock, the princess saw three trolls

glowering at their wives. She knew they were trolls by their

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stony skin and their tails; she could see dark tail-tufts peeking

from the bottoms of the troll-wives’ long skirts.

“Yes!” hissed the second troll to his wife, “and your mud

muffins are dreadful!”

“You cook as poorly as your mother did!” shouted the third.

Then the he-trolls stomped off, the ground shaking with

their steps.

The troll-wives shook their heads. “Won’t raise a finger

to help, but happy to complain!” one muttered.

“We’ll have to sprinkle our faces with troll magic to make

ourselves beautiful, so the menfolk will be nicer,” said the second.

“But I’m tired of pretending I’m something I’m not!”

declared the third. “And the magic never lasts anyway.”

The first nodded. “Why can’t they love us just as we

are?” she murmured.

The princess couldn’t help herself—she jumped out and

exclaimed, “There’s a better way!”

The troll-wives just looked at her.

“What’s to keep us from baking you in a pie? The men

would like that,” said one. The others cackled and nodded.

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“Then you’d never hear my advice,” the princess

answered calmly.

“What advice?”

“You’re weary of using magic to make yourselves

beautiful, are you not?”

“Yes! But our magic can turn us into any form we choose,

and that’s how we trick the men into being nice to us!”

“So why not solve the problem once and for all?” the

princess asked. “Next time your husbands complain, ask

them if good cooking is important to them. They’ll scream

yes! Then ask if you troll-wives are good cooks. They’ll

shout no! Then say, But you men are better at doing things,

aren’t you? They’ll say yes!” She looked at the troll-wives

knowingly.

“What good will that do?” they asked.

The princess sighed—trolls, she knew, are a bit

thickheaded. “Don’t you see? You then say: Since cooking is

so important—and since you’re better at doing things than

we are—you do the cooking from now on!”

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Slowly, very slowly, smiles began spreading across the

troll-wives’ craggy faces. And they began to dance. “The men

are acting rude!” they sang. “So now they’ll cook the food!”

When they finally stopped, they said, “You’ve done us a

great favor, human. We’ll repay you someday if we can.”

The princess bowed politely and traveled on.

W H E N T H E P R I N C E S S arrived at the palace, the

queen was shocked. “You come here in dusty, common

clothes, alone and on foot?” she gasped from her throne.

“Apparently you haven’t been prepared for royal life!”

The princess soon realized that convincing the queen

that she was worthy of her son might be difficult. When she

met the prince, she liked him a lot, and he liked her. But

the queen kept her busy day and night learning “the ways

of a princess.” She was crammed into tight-fitting dresses

bristling with lace and crinoline, her feet were wedged into

teetering high-heel shoes that pinched her toes, and she had

to spend hours learning makeup and hairstyling. “A princess

must be graciously attired and formal at all times!” the

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queen declared. And since the queen spent most of her time

doing delicate needlework and embroidering, she insisted

the young woman do the same.

The princess grew restless and unhappy. How she

longed to ride a horse, climb a tree, read a book, inspect

the kingdom, attend a council, and make decisions! Only

the time she spent with the prince, who, though he praised

her beauty and elegance also treated her as an equal and a

friend, made it bearable.

O N E D A Y T H E queen, who had grown jealous of her

son’s admiration of the princess, announced she was putting

the girl to a test.

“To prove yourself worthy of my son, you must spin

a pound of flax into the finest thread before the sun rises

tomorrow—or leave the kingdom!” With that she locked

her in a small room containing only a spinning wheel and a

mound of flax.

The princess had barely learned to spin—but a whole

pound in one night? Impossible! Once the lock clicked, she

put her head in her hands in despair.

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Suddenly, a strange old woman with an enormous nose

stood before her. Though the woman seemed oddly familiar,

the princess couldn’t place her.

“Here, I’ll do that,” the woman said sweetly, motioning

her away from the wheel. “All I ask is that you call me

Auntie when next we meet.”

The princess agreed—and when the queen unlocked

the door at dawn, she found the princess curled on the floor

asleep beside a pound of flax spun into the finest thread.

That night the queen locked her in the room again,

insisting she turn all the thread into linen by morning, a

task even more impossible than the first.

Again the princess despaired—but another old woman

appeared, her body bent and twisted but her face kindly.

“If you’ll call me Auntie when next we meet, I’ll make the

linen,” she said. The queen found the task completed at

sunrise.

“One more test!” she shouted, certain that this time the

princess would fail. “Sew the linen into twelve fine shirts!”

But again a strange old woman appeared, this one with

great bulging eyes, and the work was done.

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T H E Q U E E N C O U L D object no longer. On the

appointed day the prince and princess were happily wed, and

their faces glowed with love. But the girl dreaded the boring

life ahead of her, sewing and spinning beside the queen.

To her surprise, though, the first of the strange ugly

women appeared at the wedding feast and walked boldly to

the royal table. The princess remembered her promise—and

felt grateful besides. “Welcome, Auntie!” she said earnestly.

“This is your aunt?” the prince asked. He instantly

stood and greeted the long-nosed woman courteously,

offering her a chair at the royal table. Soon the other two

ugly women also appeared. The princess welcomed each

as “Auntie,” and the prince graciously seated them near his

mother, who could barely conceal her disgust.

Then the prince turned to the three horrible-looking

women. “Forgive me,” he said with embarrassment, “but . . .

are you certain you’re my wife’s . . . aunts?”

“Oh yes!” said the bent-over woman.

“She’s been kind to us!” put in the bulgy-eyed one.

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“But . . . ,” the prince spluttered, “how could such a

beautiful princess be related to women who look so very . . .

different?”

“Glad you asked!” the first woman said cheerfully. “See

this horrible sausage nose?” She wagged her nose at the

queen. “My mother told me a lady must spin and spin—

and though I was beautiful once, all that spinning made

my nose grow!”

“I,” said the second woman, nudging the queen with her

elbow, “was lovely and lithe as a dancer. But all I ever did

was weave, and now I’m bent like an old tree.”

“And I never read or went out or played at games or

music, just stared at my sewing—so now I’m pop-eyed as a

frog!” added the third, looking closely at the queen with a

bulging eye.

The prince’s mouth fell open. Turning quickly to his

new wife he said, “We can’t let this happen to you! Promise

you won’t spend all your time spinning, weaving, and

sewing with my mother—that you’ll ride and read and

dance and travel, and rule with me!”

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The princess agreed, her heart flooding with joy.

And as the three ugly women rose, curtsied, and turned

to go, the princess suddenly realized why they seemed so

familiar.

For peeking out at the bottom of each skirt there

bobbed a dark tufted tail.

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Cricket Media® Books for Kids at Every Stage!

Imaginative Stories and Poetry from CRICKET® Magazine

Fiction Science Fiction & Fantasy 920L • 759 words

Text © 2013 by Tim J. Myers, Art © 2013 by Anna Bron

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ISBN 978-1-64262-011-5