Dear children,
Haven't you all wondered at some point, what the phrase "happily ever after" in countless fairy tales meant? Well, let me tell you the story within the story that is now three separate fairy tales – Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White – to help you understand it!
Once upon a time . . . all the above stories took place. And all at the very same time too, mind you. For example, the moment Cinderella lost her glass slipper was the same moment when Snow White and Sleeping Beauty got poisoned in their respective homes. So, as you see, the stories you have read so far only had one Princess and a matched Prince Charming to her, when in reality, there were three Princesses with their three Princes Charming, who – it seems – ruled over the same kingdom without knowing each others' presence!
Let us begin this fairy tale with the story of the first Prince Charming, who danced with Cinderella and picked up her dainty-looking glass slipper. This Prince had, as you remember, decided to go looking for the owner of the slippers, and you can be sure he was looking for only the daintiest pair of princess feet.
As this brave and persevering Prince travelled over the hills and dales of his kingdom (a lot of it was still unpopulated, you see), he chanced upon a piece of vast land that was filled with crumbling walls and overgrown shrub. Deftly, as a Prince of royal bearing should, he avoided the countless traps that surrounded the place until he reached the very heart of it. What a surprise! He had found a Princess in the most unlikeliest of all places! For our information, this Princess was none other than Sleeping Beauty, who had not been yet given a proper name by her parents. And as the Prince could see very well, she was . . . sleeping. He decided to approach her, when he heard a grunt, and the sound of metal boots crunching dry twigs. Prince Charming the Second had arrived, and was staring hard at Prince Charming the First. You see, the second Prince was very angry that another prince had reached the place that he was destined to reach first, and was sizing up his opponent. The first Prince, not knowing what else to do, said, "Hi!"
And that one word decided the second Prince's mind for him. With a guttural war cry – so unlike a prince – he slashed his sword at his opponent, who dodged it and drew out his sword as well.
The battle raged long and hard, for – try as they might – neither could overcome the other, having been equally trained with every implement of destruction. Over land and sea did the Princes Charming fight, till the battle carried them far away to another part of the landscape.
This sudden drop in decibel levels sounded very wrong to Sleeping Beauty in her glass coffin, who decided to finally wake up from her feigned sleep – but only after counting to ten to make sure the Princes weren't coming back. Being an expert tracker (for how else could she have survived all these years in this deserted landscape?), she followed the Princes' meandering battle path with eager steps, anxious for her prophesied first kiss.
Let us now return to the Princes, for the fairy of this tale demands that we move on to them. The Princes, by a surprising twist of fate, reached the abode of another future-Princess named Snow White, who lay in an enchanted sleep under a tree, affected by a poisoned apple.
The second Prince, enraged at the first Prince's excellent countermoves that neutralised his own, charged him with his sword swinging freely. The first Prince ducked, and the second Prince, losing his balance, landed on Snow White and accidentally planted that now-famous first kiss that brought her back to this world.
Coincidentally, that was when Snow White's Prince Charming (for us, the Third) and Sleeping Beauty arrived at the very spot too.
Sleeping Beauty and Snow White (now having woken up feeling quite groggy after a week of sleep) were quite disoriented by this sudden super-abundance of good-looking Princes. Even as they looked around in confusion, Snow White's evil Stepmother arrived in a towering temper, having just made her magical Mirror tell her the location of her supposedly-dead step-daughter.
The sight of the three handsome princes stopped her in her tracks – and all of a sudden, her rage vanished as quickly as a wave would extinguish a candle flame.
Being of royal blood, the Princes were not accustomed to receiving admiration of a certain kind from Queens older than themselves, and they made to leave at once. The first two Princes picked up their fight from where they had left off – followed closely by Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, and were soon lost to sight. The third Prince Charming, slightly vexed by the unrelenting stare of the evil Stepmother, turned away with a haughty shake of his upright head, and rushed off along the tracks left by the others, leaving the Stepmother standing alone and confused by this sudden turn of events. However, being an evil Stepmother, she gathered her wits very quickly, and summoned a horde of monstrous beasts, and commanded them to hunt down the Princes. Equipped thus with demons from the Nether regions, she tore off in pursuit of her quarry.
In the meantime, the fighting Princes found themselves at the house where Cinderella stayed. The first Prince, unknowingly, kept waving about the glass slipper clutched in his other hand (so deep was his motivation, you see, to find the owner of the foot that fit into the slipper in his hand). This drew the attention of the maid-servant of the house (whom we now realise, had to be Cinderella – minus her princess costume), who gave out a loud cry of surprise. As we know, this staged shout caught the attention of the first Prince, who – ignoring his heaving, raging opponent – rushed to her side, slipper in hand. Just at this moment, several things happened all at once – you need to listen very carefully now, children.
Snow White and Sleeping Beauty rushed into the hall, sweaty-faced and exhausted from their travel. The third Prince bounced into the hall (yes, bounced – his magnificent steed, irritated with the amount of travel it had to do that day, had thrown its novice rider off the saddle) screaming the most un-Princely invectives at anyone who would listen. The evil Stepmother flew into the hall, followed by the legion of beasts at her command. The first Prince froze mid-proposal. The second Prince's head turned to the door.
There was a very pregnant moment, when time froze and seemed to do the collective thinking of every being in the hall – the three Princes, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Cinderella, the evil Stepmother, and the beasts. The moment passed, and the beasts charged. The three Princesses, accustomed to rescues from handsome Princes named Charming, looked to their saviours . . . and kept looking, as the three Princes turned tail and ran off into the distance, followed by the beasts.
A very quick discussion among the ladies followed, as it was not known what ladies of royal blood (whether good or evil) were to do if their rescuers or slayers (respectively) refused to perform the tasks assigned to them. In the end, it was decided that handsome Princes were named Charming for a reason: they were charming indeed, but fit for nothing else.
And so it came to pass that the Princesses eventually decided to get married. Would you like to know who else they could marry, if not a handsome Prince? Anyone else!
Sleeping Beauty, extremely impressed with the make of her glass coffin, married her undertaker.
Snow White realised she still liked the company of the seven dwarves who had so kindly taken care of her in her destitute days, and married them.
Finally, our Cinderella married a cobbler, for she found him to satisfy her craving for dainty little slippers.
And so, we come to the end of our tale, dear children. Only fate and time can tell us if they lived happily from then on, for that will be another long story – a story that cannot be compressed into the words, "and they lived happily ever after!