And though Maiden Matanuska vowed she wished no prince at all, her father gave her protests no heed. "There is a handsome youth who wears a feather mantle with whom I see you wandering in the forest. Who is he?" King Tamna asked.
"He is Prince Kenai of the burning mountain," said the maiden. "He, too, has dreams of light and tells me wonder tales which I do love to hear."
"Prince Kenai is the poorest prince in all the Northland Kingdom," said the king; "but if his wonder tales please you, I shall say nothing."
Now, as may be supposed, there was no lack of suitors for the maiden's hand. Indeed these hundred princes of the Northland Kingdom each longed to marry her. She was the fairest maiden in the land, and moreover, she was as lovely of mind and manner as she was fair of face.
There came at last a certain night when good King Tamna sat in state to greet his tribute-bearing princes, and Maiden Matanuska sat beside her father. In robes of purple velvet bordered deep with ermine and thickly sewn with threads of beaten gold, with golden crown and sceptre too, King Tamna looked a very king of kings,—a monarch of great state and dignity. The Maiden Matanuska, robed in shimmering gossamer white, her golden hair, that fell about her like a cloak, crowned with a wreath of leaves, and in her hand a holly branch, looked like some angel newly come from paradise. She seemed some lovely maiden in a dream, who would perhaps take flight and float away in the encircling gloom and mists. These hundred princes knelt before the throne and begged the lovely maiden's hand in marriage.
At this the king was troubled, for clearly Maiden Matanuska could not wed them all, and how to choose among them he knew not. At last the royal counselors advised him in the following way:
"Now since these hundred youths be princes all, and therefore suitable in rank to wed your daughter, let Maiden Matanuska for herself decide which one she'll wed."
When this was told, the Maiden Matanuska sat some time in thought and then she spoke. "I'll wed the prince who brings to me the thing which I have never seen before, for which I long with all my heart, and which I shall love well."
The hundred princes then departed to their various lands and began to seek among their treasures to find the thing they thought would please the maiden. Some princes brought her toys of ivory wrought in wondrous ways, and some brought robes of doeskin, soft as satin, white as milk, embroidered all in beads of many colors. But these proved not the thing for which the maiden longed. Some princes brought her great carved silver chests, and some brought chains and bracelets made of purest gold; but none of these were what the Maiden Matanuska wished, and all these princes failed to win their suit. So fared they all until at last there were but three to try their fate,—Prince Kathalan, Prince Katala, and Prince Kenai.
Now Prince Kathalan was the greatest warrior of all the Northland Kingdom. He had won a hundred battles and boasted that he would win a hundred more. He gloried in his warlike fame and doubted not that Maiden Matanuska would favor him above all others.