Once upon a time in a far away land, a young prince lived in a shining castle. He was ray of sunshine to the kingdom the moment he was born. His subjects adored him as did the servants but no one loved him more than his mother the queen. She was the most beautiful woman in the land not just because of her lovely face but also because of her kind and gentle heart. Under her care, the prince was a playful and happy boy but when he was still a child the queen was struck down with a fatal illness and died. The whole kingdom was heartbroken but the king and prince were inconsolable.
The king was a cold and bitter man who raised his son to be an uncaring young man. The servants feared for the prince's wellbeing but there was nothing they could do and by the time the king passed it was too late. For the prince had now become spoiled, selfish, and unkind. When the prince turned seventeen it was time for him to choose a wife, many princesses and noblewomen came in hopes of marrying him. They were all lovely but the prince didn't want some pretty girl he wanted the best. In fact he declared that he would only marry a woman who was as beautiful as his mother. His servants brought some of the best looking single maidens but not one of them had beauty that could even come close to the late queen's.
When he wasn't rejecting suitable brides, he was taxing the people til they were dry and poor. His servants tried to convince him to refrain from his cruel ways but the prince had become hard hearted and believed that if he couldn't truly be loved or happy then no one should.
He might have stayed that way for the rest of his life but then one winter's night an old beggar woman came to the castle and offered him a single rose in return for shelter from the bitter cold. It was a very strange but beautiful rose, a deep Ruby red with black spots on the petals and a black stem with green thorns.
The prince sneered at the gift and turned the old woman away but she warned him not to be deceived by appearances for beauty is found with in. And when he dismissed her again the old woman's ugliness melted away to reveal a beautiful enchantress. The prince tried to apologize but it was too late for she had seen there was no love in his heart and as punishment she transformed him into a beast and placed a powerful spell on the castle transforming the servants as well and giving them new identities to live by.
Ashamed of his monstrous form the Beast concealed himself inside his castle with a magic mirror which was his only window to the outside world. The rose she had offered was truly an enchanted rose that would bloom for five years, he would be twenty-one when it would wilt. If he could learn to another and earn her love in return before the last petal fell then the spell would be broken if not he would be doomed to be a beast for all time. As the years passed he fell into despair and lost all hope for who could ever learn to love a beast?