"Oi! What about the curse! Barechild can't have lived the rest of her life under the curse, never able to speak or wear clothes! Come on Tom, finish the story!"
Tom gives a loud heart-warming chuckle. "HAHA! See, our stranger friend is listening more than you lot! You are quite right my friend, I have forgotten how Barechild broke her spell.
Well, after she was married to the prince, Barechild's secret was impossible to keep. After all, she was a princess who could not speak and wore nothing but a bear skin cloak.
So the royals had to explain that she was cursed.
And people began to guess and bet on when her curse would be broken.
Two year was gone so three was the next bet. Four was never an option as four is a unlucky number. Five was a good guess. So was ten.
But those who bet on ten were way out.
It was eight years.
For eight long years Barechild was silent, unable to say her husband or son's names. Unable to make a sound. Unable to make a whisper.
Then one day…
"Oww!"
She'd pricked her finger while making a shirt for her son.
Her husband and family looked up suddenly from their games. They stared at her. "Barechild?"
The woman looked up. And smiled. "My name's Rin, husband."
He ran over to her and swept her up into his arms, hugging her tight before turning her around and lifting the cloak away. Her curse was gone, the scars healing right before his eyes.
No one knows why that single pin prick cured her but Barechild was free.
She fell to her knees and grabbed her son in a hug, calling his name over and over again until he was sick of hearing it!
Then she turned to her husband and called him by name until he was sick of hearing it. Leaving his son with his grandmother, the prince took the woman up to their bedchambers, took off her bear cape and took her to the bed. And there they spoke and laughed and Rin told him everything.
Turned out that Barechild was very special. Of course, her husband and son already knew that but it turned out she was very, very special. She was in fact a princess from a country to the north, a rich powerful country. She had been cursed when her father refused to pay the full price for a dress he'd had commissioned for her. She had been forced to wear nothing but an old bear skin coat or suffer a painful fate. It had led to her running away from home as people laughed and pointed at her.
But now she was free and able to speak and dress and be with her husband and son.
And as I said, she lived happily for the rest of her life.