The entertaining story of King Brondé, his Lily and his Rosebud

by Abby Morton Diaz

So she, too, kept her own counsel, and nobody was the wiser. But it is curious to see how, sometimes, events are brought about.

The king said one day to his daughter: “Choose you now a husband, for old age is coming upon me, and I would know, before I die, that my child and my kingdom are well cared for.”

But the pretty White Lily grew bashful and said, “Let me not choose, but rather be chosen.”

Then the king said: “Who would dare to choose my beautiful Lily, my princess? But give yourself no uneasiness, since I myself can make the choice.”

Then the princess was quite troubled, not knowing upon whom the choice might fall. And she thought that by a cunning little trick matters might be well arranged. So she said to her father, the king: “My dearest father, in coming from the mountains one day, I discovered a lock of hair, so beautiful that I have preserved it ever since. Whoever, now, in all your court, can match this lock with one of his own, he, and he only, shall be my choice.”

Now when this declaration of the princess was made known, it caused great commotion among the young nobles of the court. All were examining their locks, and longing to know the color of that which the king’s Lily had discovered in coming from the mountain.

Brondé sent in one of his fair curls with the rest, and was, of course, the lucky winner. For not one in the whole court had hair so soft and of so beautiful a color as he.

And he soon found that the heart of the princess was quite large enough to love even so big a fellow as himself. And the princess made the discovery that the small, pale thing, as she had called herself, was the very thing, in all the world, that Brondé most wished for. The king, too, was well pleased to give to his daughter so kind a protector, and to his kingdom so brave a defender. And thus it happened, for once, that everybody was pleased. The lady with her lover, the lover with his lady, the king with his son-in-law, and the people with their king that was to be.

There was one person, however, who, far away, hearing of Brondé’s good fortune, was not so well pleased. This person was a man of great strength and size, who has already been spoken of. He called himself Magnus, or “The Great.”

He, too, had once been among the king’s guards, and would have been quite ready to take both daughter and kingdom. But by reason of his cruelty and for his many bad acts, he was banished from the country. After Brondé had been made a great captain in the army, Magnus went to him secretly, by night, and said: “Come, now, we two are strong and can accomplish whatsoever we will. Let us gather about us a troop of brave men; let us entice the king’s soldiers; there are many who will gladly fight under two such powerful leaders. We will attack the palace, throw the king into prison, and become ourselves rulers of the land.”