A/N: I was reading 'The Snow Queen' by Hans Something Anderson a short while ago and heck it was amazing.
…This is not going to work, is it.
King Arthur the Beloved
Part I
British, Britain, Britannia
Once there lived a King, where the grass was green in the hills and the silver voices of brooks and streams chimed sweeter than any church-bell, and his name was Arthur. His subjects and his people smiled when they called him King Arthur, for they were wont to remember the old tale, told by grandmothers around the fire-side, of another King Arthur. He had been wise, chivalrous, brave and just; they were glad that their King was much the same.
And so they were proud to take on another of his names, Great Britain, so that each of them, from his maids to his stable-boys, from the great sailors and explorers to the lowly shepherds, could call themselves 'British'.
They loved their King, for though he was often ruthless in fits of rages – they did not happen often, these tempests of fury when the black clouds in the darkening skies would gather, but alas, happen they did – when not even the bravest dared to approach him, he would much more frequently take his white mare to ride among his people, as though he lived in a glistening white Castle with all the gold and beautiful jewels in the world, he never forgot that some were yet poor.
This mare he called 'Unicorn', on account of the gleaming silver horn that was set in the middle of her forehead, and he was very fond of her. No matter if the road was of cobblestones or dirt or was not a road at all, but a trough of thick, slimy mud, her footsteps always sang out like the gentle lilt of harpsichords, and the people would know that the King was coming. He stopped often: to give a bundle of gold to a poor old beggar-woman by the roadside, to confer with his farmers, blacksmiths, stonemasons, for his knowledge spanned even wider than the seven seas he ruled, to console young orphans – it saddened him to know so, but there were many when the going was tough – and offer them a home in his Castle, where they could be warriors when they grew up. Truly they were blessed to have such a good King.
But most of all, they were glad that he was not like his mother, the beautiful Britannia, a swish of whose hair encompassed all the russet-brown of the earth, whose eyes held all the dark green of the forests and more. But men drew away their wives, mothers their children, and mothers and grandmothers alike frowned and kept their daughters and grand-daughters away when she passed down the street. In truth, she was sweet and kind as she was charitable, as kind as Arthur, even.
But it was rumoured that though she had no King, she would often keep the company of others, not caring if they were from rival kingdoms. And this was no decent company befitting of a young lady of such fine land and people, oh no, for though she had no King she had children aplenty – thin Caledonia, all joints and bones, rust in his hair; Hibernia, scrawny as her brother – and many had seen her entertaining Rome and Gaul, to name two of many.
And you can imagine how whispers would follow her in the place of smiles, and among her own people she carried a special curse: whenever someone opened their mouth to speak, instead of a stream of blessings a multitude of curses would tumble forth, and these would stick to her until she sickened from carrying their weight. She was very beautiful, the people would agree, but as time wore on their hisses and ill wishes grew onto her like a skin of decaying moss, and though she still could not be faulted, there was no doubt that she was horribly ugly. Her eyes were the green of the mould beneath a rock in a dank cave, and her hair, the rotting brown of diseased tree-bark.
It was sometimes whispered that when she died, many rejoiced.
A/N: This is just me hedging. There is more to come.
Caledonia: old name for Scotland, and Hibernia, Ireland.