MärchenMärchen

"This fairy tale is so new and so mysterious, even we don't know its name yet".

Princess Lena is fed up with wearing pink patent-leather shoes, lace, frills and bouffant dresses. She's had it with spending all of her time conforming to court etiquette and practising embroidery, sewing, weaving or "graceful coughing". She would much rather hang around incognito in the horse stables - a place which, much like the forest or the knights' training grounds, is strictly out of bounds to her. But Lena knows when something is strictly forbidden, exciting secrets often await discovery!

In the horse stables, she meets and falls in love with a stable hand called Hannes. Their clandestine meetings go well at first, until her father decides that she is now of marital age and tries to sell her off : "Pretty, young, well-built princess seeks prince to rule and cuddle, with all the trimmings". Lena is all but impressed with the applicants; she only want to be with Hannes! When the king attempts to marry her off to the handsome yet utterly conceited Prince Martin, she takes flight, seeking refuge in the dark, eerie forest.

In this highly amusing, cheeky fairy tale, Karin Eppler turns all of the usual clichés on their head. The princess takes her fate into her own hands, without waiting for the proverbial knight in shining armour to save her. Even the frog she encounters on her journey actually turns out to be a toad and isn't much use to her at all. In the end, it is only through her own skill and intelligence that she manages to defeat an entire knighthood to reach her own dreams.