Only then, when he could put it off no longer, did he send a letter to his former fiancée. For so ashamed was he that, rather than face her in person, he broke up with her by post.
The lady was not pleased.
She did not, however, pine, or weep, or lock herself in a darkened room while minstrels played sad music for her in the courtyard. Such was not her nature. She stormed through her father’s house in a rage, shouting at all and sundry. She ranted,and raved, and hurled crockery against the wall so she could hear the gratifying smash. Her father was at first understanding of her shock and grief, but when her fury did not abate as the weeks grew into months, he became alarmed.
In an effort to placate her, he asked, “My dearest daughter, is there anything which would please you? For you may have whatever you wish.”
His daughter ceased shouting. Lost in thought, she lowered the earthenware soup bowl she’d been about to throw, turning it over and over in her hands.
At length, she answered, “If that is so, Father, then I would like you to find eleven girls who appear exactly identical to me in every respect.”
He stared at her in surprise. “I was envisioning something more along the lines of a puppy.”
“Eleven girls,” she repeated, her fingers whitening as her clutch on the bowl tightened, “who appear exactly identical to me in every respect.”
“Very well, I’ll find them!” he promised. “Just…just put the bowl down, all right?” For his supplies of crockery were running very low.
He searched throughout the land until eleven women were found who met his daughter’s requirements. When they arrived, she had a dozen identical huntsmen’s outfits made to their size. The eleven girls changed into these clothes, and she donned the twelfth outfit herself. Thus attired, she bid farewell to her father, and the women rode off together.
“Goodbye!” he shouted after them. “Have fun doing whatever it is you intend to do with eleven eerily similar women disguised in men’s clothing!”
As you may have guessed, the twelve of them arrived many weeks later (bad roads, miserable weather, etc.) at the court of the former prince, now king.
“Hello, strange king whom I have never met!” the ladygreeted him. “Have you any need of huntsmen? For we twelve are mightily skilled at hunting and eager to put ourselves at your service.”
“Is that so?” The king did not recognize her, thanks to her cunning disguise, but he found he was much taken by the appearance of these strangers. “I must say, you are exceedingly handsome fellows.”
“Are we really?” the lady inquired smugly.
“Remarkably so. Just to my taste, so to speak.”
“Imagine that,” replied the lady.
“Obviously, I could not refuse a request from such a group of attractive, I might even say enticing—”
“You’re beginning to make this a little weird,” she informed him.
“Sorry. What I meant to say is, of course I shall accept your service. I hereby declare you to be the King’s Huntsmen!”
And thus they were welcomed into the court with great celebration.
Now, as you are no doubt already aware, the king had a talking lion who knew all manner of secret things.
Oh, did the talking lion never come up before? You’d think such a phenomenal creature would have been brought to your attention right away, not suddenly dropped into the middle of the story like this. And you might, in addition, reasonably expect a quick explanation of why the king had this talking lion, and how it knew secret things, and so forth. But you will not receive such information, not in this version of the tale.
So—for unknown reasons, there was a talking lion. One day, apropos of nothing in particular, the lion pronounced to the king, “You believe you have twelve huntsmen serving at your court.”
The king was understandably perplexed. “I know I have twelve huntsmen.”
“You do not,” the lion averred.
“I assure you that I do. I have seen them. I was there when they were taken into my service. In fact, I hired them myself.”
“You do not have twelve huntsmen. They are women.”
“They cannot possibly be women,” the king scoffed. “They wear trousers. Women do not wear trousers. Honestly, I’d have thought you knew that. What kind of magical talking lion are you?”
“They are women,” the lion explained, “who haveput on trousersin order todisguise the fact that they are women.”
