CHAPTER II.
IN MUSHROOM LAND.
NOW all the Kingdom next Fairy Land was miserable, and All the people were murmuring, and the King and Queen were nearly melted in tears. They thought of all ways to recover their dear daughter, and at last the Queen hit on a plan.
“My dear,” she said to the King, “let us offer to give our daughter for a wife, to any Prince who will only find her and bring her home.”
“Who will want to marry a girl he can’t see?” said the King. “If they have not married pretty girls they can see, they won’t care for poor Niente.”
“Never mind; we can only try,” said the Queen. So she sent out messengers into all the world, and sent the picture of the Princess everywhere, and proclaimed that the beautiful Princess Niente, and no less than three-quarters of the Kingdom would be given to the Prince that could find the Princess and bring her home. And there was to be a great tournament, or sham fight, at the Palace, to amuse all the Princes before they went on the search. So many Princes gathered together, all full of hope; and they rode against each other with spears and swords, and knocked each other about, and afterwards dined, and danced, and made merry. Some Fairy Knights, too, came over the border, and they fought with spears, riding Beetles and Grasshoppers, instead of horses. Here is a picture of a “joust,” or tournament, between two sets of Fairy Knights. By all these warlike exercises, they increased their courage till they felt brave enough to fight all the Ghosts, and all the Giants, if only they could save the beautiful Princess.
