No sooner was the order given than there was a tremendous roar of thunder. The ground was still shaking when the Fairy Truth appeared.
“Until now, Prince Darling,” the fairy said sternly, “I have been very gentle with you. You have been very wicked, but I have done no more than warn you that you were doing wrong and becoming the very sort of man your father, the good King, wanted you NOT to be. Now I must take stronger measures, for you have paid no attention to my warnings.
“Really you are more like the wild animals than a man and a prince. You roar with anger like a lion. You are greedy for fine food and clothes and a good time, as a wolf is greedy for its prey. You are untrue to your friends, like a treacherous snake. You even turn upon the kind tutor who was your father’s firmest friend, and who would like to help you, too, if you would let him. You are as disagreeable as an angry bull, that keeps everyone out of its neighborhood, because everyone knows it is not safe to go near.”
The Fairy’s voice now roared forth in terrible tones, which made Prince Darling shake from head to heel:
“Therefore, I condemn you to have a hideous body like your ugly character—part lion, part wolf, part snake, and part bull.”
The Prince put his hand to his head, because he felt as if he should weep at this awful sentence. He found his face covered with a lion’s shaggy beard; a bull’s horns had grown out of his skull. He looked at his feet: they were those of a wolf. His body was the long slimy body of a snake.
The palace had disappeared, and he stood beside a clear lake in a deep forest. He shuddered with horror when he saw his reflection in the lake. His horror turned to rage when he heard the Fairy Truth say:
“Your punishment has just begun. Your pride will be hurt still more when you fall into the hands of your own subjects. And that is what is going to happen to you.”
Just as the Fairy said the Prince fell into the hands of his subjects, and in a most humiliating way, for he was caught in a trap which had been set to catch bears. Thus he was captured alive and led into the chief city of the kingdom.
There was no mourning in the town because of the Prince’s death, by a thunderbolt, as they supposed. Instead, there was great rejoicing, for Suliman had been made King by the people, who were sick and tired of the way Prince Darling had misruled them.