Read Online Tatterhood by Margrete Lamond - Free Book Online

because she was the one he could easiest do without. The whitebear handed over the wreath, took the princess on his back and loped off with her.
    When they had travelled far, and further than far, the whitebear said, ‘Tell me, have you ever ridden so smooth, or seen so fine a view, as you now do from my back?’
    â€˜No,’ said the eldest princess.
    â€˜Then you’re not the right one,’ said the bear, and he shook her from his shoulders and sent her home.
    The following Thursday the bear returned. This time the king sent out his next eldest daughter – spitfire that she was – and the whitebear took her on his back and lumbered off into the evening. When they had travelled far and further than far, he asked her, ‘Have you ever ridden so smooth, or seen so fine a view, as you now do?’
    â€˜No,’ said the second princess.
    â€˜Then you’re not the right one, either,’ said the whitebear, and setting her on her own two feet, he left her to get home as best she could.
    The third Thursday evening he came again, and this time the king had no choice. Out went his youngest daughter, after all, to fulfil the bargain she had made.
    The bear took her on his back and together they went – far and further than far, deep into a wilderness of forest and cliffs – and when they gone so far and so deep that the princess didn’t think they could get any further, he asked her, as he had asked the others, whether she had ever sat smoother or seen finer.
    â€˜When I sat in my mother’s womb I sat smoother,’ said the youngest princess, ‘and when I looked out through my mother’s eyes, I saw clearer.’
    â€˜Then you’re the right one,’ he said and, passing through a gorge, carried her up to a castle so fine that her father’s home seemed shabby by comparison.
    And there the princess lived, both idle and grand. She had nothing in the world to do but sit with her hands folded and, from time to time, see that the fire stayed lit.
    By day she sat alone. She saw no one and said nothing. But at night – when all was dark in the lampless castle and she couldn’t see past her own nose – the bear came home and stayed with her. And though by day he was a lumbering shaggy beast, by night he seemed and felt and behaved so human-like that she could almost have believed he was a man.
    And so it went for three years. If all had gone well, the princess might have been content. But when, every year, she gave birth to a baby girl, the whitebear came in, took it from its cradle and – with neither apology nor explanation – carried it away.
    The princess grew thin and trembling. In the end, she couldn’t stand it any longer – not the daytime silence, not the night-time dark, and not the empty cradles.
    â€˜If I don’t have some human company soon,’ she said one evening, I’ll go mad. Let me pay a visit to my parents.’
    The whitebear didn’t seem to mind, but before she went she had to promise him two things. ‘By all means listen to the words of your father,’ said the whitebear in the dark, ‘but, whatever you do, ignore your mother’s advice.’
    The king’s daughter promised. She went home and got human company by the cartload, but when she was alone with her parents at last, her worries came bursting out. She told them what went on by day, and what went on at night, and what happened every year to her baby girls. And she told them she was so confused she could no longer tell up from down – let alone man from beast.
    Well, her mother straight away fetched her a candle to take back to the castle, so that she could light up that lampless place, and maybe even see what the bear looked like by night. And though her father warned it would do more harm than good, the princess took the candle with her when she left.
    The first thing she did on arriving home was to light the candle and