Well… this is it. The end. Das Ende. Fin.
Here the story and the adventures of our wise, fair Zelda come to an end… so… sorry, but you, we all won't be hearing from the wise, fair Zelda ever again… sob!
Well, I really don't have anything to say/write here, but the silver dagger has an author's afterword, and so I decided that for consistency's sake that this story would have one too…
Do I have anything to say/write? No, other than thanks for reading my story and I hope you enjoyed it! To everybody who took his/her time to comment or even just leave a numerical rating; thank you guys so much! While I wrote this story, it was ultimately you guys who kept me going!
I had written a couple of stories before, but due to lack of recognition those stories are now on ice.
I just wish there were still more of my original readers here… the guys who had been with me since the silver dagger…
Man… it kinda feels weird to be here now, and to write this… when I began to write "The wise queen of Hyrule" I had no idea that it would take me so long and so much… Four years, can you believe it? For four I wrote about the wise, fair Zelda… and now… it's over… I won't be writing about her ever again… strange.
I remember there was a reader or two who wanted me to write a sequel but… no. Sometimes it is for the best that you stop… and I feel this is one such time.
However… I have posted the first chapter of another LOZ rewritten fairytale. And while officially it is NOT a sequel to "The Queen's Most Precious Treasure," if you really, really want to… I guess you can treat it as one.
The title is "The grey wolf beneath the cherry tree."
What follows next is not too important… it's just a list of all the changes I made to the original story and why. Dunno why exactly I bothered to write all that down here… maybe it was to show off one last? I don't know, you guys decide!
…come to think of it though… it might be interesting to my fellow writers here, particularly our new writers!
I hope to see you guys again in one of my other stories, if not, I guess this is good bye?
One last thing I got to say/write:
I am no one special… what I can do, anyone can do. If I can do it, so can you.
The war with the vile Ganondorf
The Clever Farmer's Daughter, or at least the version I was told and as I remembered it, began with the farmer and his daughter approaching the king and begging him for a piece of land. Right then and there I thought:
STOP!
Why would a farmer ask a king for a piece of land? Farmers usually already HAVE a piece of land plus a farm on top of that, which they inherited from their fathers who inherited it from their fathers and so on and so forth.
So why was the farmer in this story without a farm? 'Wasn't explained in the original story.
And so… right then, right there I had a dubious detail I had to iron out:
How do I explain the farmer without a farm? A farm is not something you can lose after all…
But I had an immediate answer to this one:
War! War destroys EVERYTHING! Houses, homes, buildings, farms, villages, towns, cities even entire countries!
So… I had the poor old Daphnes lose his farm, his family's farm, thanks to some war; happened often enough in the medieval ages I think.
But that opened up a new problem: Who started the war and why?
But that was easy as well! I instinctively went with good/bad old Ganondorf! You can't go wrong with an old classic (unless you really, really screw things up!) Besides… just look at the Ganondorf designs from Twilight Princess and Hyrule Warriors… don't they just scream "evil warlord/conqueror?!"
As for why… didn't bother thinking of that one. THAT one I felt didn't need answering…
BUT if you insist on an answer…back in medieval Europe, back in the times when Europe was made up of kingdoms, they often waged war against each other over territory, land. Look at a physical map of Europe; you'll notice that there are plenty of mountains, but not so much flat land. But it's the flatland you want/need… that's one you can use for growing crops. So the more flat land you have, the more food you can grow, and the more food you can grow, the less likely you were to die of starvation. Back in old Europe that was a BIG issue since Europe experiences four seasons, and during winter NOTHING grows! So no food during winter unless what you have grown before and preserved! And no or little food in the last month of autumn and give or take 1st month of spring!
Anyway… this war with the vile Ganondorf sure came in handy… it made a good explanation for a couple of problems that came up later!
One such issue was this:
The unworthy king
The way I remembered The Clever Farmer's Daughter, whenever the story mentioned the king, he was portrayed as rather… poorly. He didn't seem too smart and he didn't seem to be too just either.
So why was such a person sitting on the throne?
In my case, easy, brave young prince Link defeated the vile Ganondorf and saved all of Hyrule. That, plus the fact that he is the last of Hyrule's royal family (which again I had Ganondorf wipe out), made him the young king of Hyrule.
(By the way… the reason why I kept referring to Link in my two stories as "the young king of Hyrule" and not simply as "King Link" is because I didn't like the sound of "King Link…" matter of fact: I still don't!)
So long story short: Although Link wasn't necessarily SUITED to be the king, he was still crowned as such because he DESERVED it. …and there was no other royal left!
(By the way: Am I the only one who thinks it's kinda weird that LINK has to save Hyrule yet ZELDA gets to sit on the throne at the end?! AND that the whole game series is named "The Legend of ZELDA" despite LINK doing all the hard work?!)
Well… seems like now is the right time to address THIS issue here:
The role reversal
The main characters in The Clever Farmer's Daughter are a clever farmer's daughter and a… for a lack of better word, foolish king.
However… in the LOZ games, Zelda is supposed to the smart noble and Link is supposed to be a brave commoner. So… one of them had to change. It was either I make Zelda a foolish queen and Link a cunning commoner, or the other way around: Zelda being a clever farmer's daughter and Link a… not too smart young king.
I instinctively went with the later option… probably because the title says "daughter!"
It DID cross my mind at one point (I think it was after I had posted the third chapter or so on FFN) to rewrite the whole story and make Zelda a foolish, haughty queen and Link a cunning farmboy instead… but almost immediately discarded that idea (well done me!)
After all… both Link and Zelda fit their roles in my stories rather well if I may say so myself:
Zelda perfectly fit the part of the pretty, clever farm maiden who impressed all with her judgment and intelligence.
And Link fit well into the role of the well-wishing, but unkingly brave prince-turned-king.
On to the next:
The silver dagger and its sheath
In The Clever Farmer's Daughter, what the daughter found in the field was not a jeweled silver dagger, instead, she found a golden mortar (without its pestle.)
Why did I change the pestleless golden mortar to a sheathless silver dagger?
One reason was because back when I just started, I didn't want people to immediately recognize that my story was based on The Clever Farmer's Daughter… You see, I was afraid that if, from the very beginning you guys knew on which story my story was based on, you guys would just go and read the original. I was worried that in that case, you would no longer like my story, seeing that it is basically just a… pretty copy. And I also didn't want you guys to spoil yourself the beautiful ending!
That was one reason I changed the golden mortar… there are not a lot of stories that mention a golden mortar without its pestle; in fact: I'm willing to bet there's only one! The Clever Farmer's Daughter!
Also… back then I wasn't aware that The Clever Farmer's Daughter is so little known outside of Germany.
Another reason was, or rather IS, my interest in smithing. There are times until today were I wish I could have tried my hand at blacksmithing or something like that. Goldsmithing… silversmithing… blacksmithing… bladesmithing… until today I wonder if any of those would have been the true path for me…
…life really didn't give me an opportunity to try my hand at them though!
Back to my story:
Another reason why I changed the golden mortar was:
Gold…
Necklace… check!
Scepter… check!
Crown… okay!
Ring… of course! (Myyyyy… prrreciouuussssss…)
Mortar… HUH?!
Who the heck would make a mortar out of gold?! And who the heck would use gold to make a mortar?! Back when I first heard the story in school I learned on that same day that gold is not a good material for a mortar… too soft!
So… I decided for that reason as well to change the golden mortar into something else!
However… it had to be made out of precious metal AND it had to be an item that normally ALWAYS comes with its pair! (Except in this story!)
Anyway, I chose to go for silver simply because I thought if I stick to the gold it'd give away on what folktale my story is based on.
As for why I chose a dagger with(out) its sheath…
Well… I'm a guy… a straight guy… maybe with a little touch of feminity, but overall a straight, masculine guy.
And well… when I was a boy, I was found of swords (most European boys are I think… or at least the ones that have heard knight stories)!
Maybe ultimately that was why I went with a jeweled silver dagger without its sheath… which is a little funny because while I like swords, I'm not fond of knives and daggers at all! …with the exception of throwing knives/daggers and butterfly swords! I ABSOLUTELY love those!
I DID consider at one point to use a sword and a sheath instead seeing that Link uses swords and daggers don't seem to appear in LOZ… but then I thought: One, a dagger is more likely to be forged out of silver than a sword. And two, a dagger is easier stolen than a sword!
…come to think of it… I think a silver dagger is more likely to show up in LOZ than a golden mortar! Feel free to prove me false though if you want!
While we're at it: While it's very unlikely for a mortar to be forged out of gold, it is not that unlikely for a sword to be forged out of silver… more so a dagger!
Of course, that is assuming that the sword and dagger we are talking about are strictly ceremonial weapons! And there really are such pieces! There really are jeweled silver daggers with jeweled silver sheaths! Google them up if you want to see some! These things can be damn beautiful!
On to the next detail I changed…
The moral Farmer's Daughter
Another deviation I made from the original tale is that I made the old Daphnes want to sell the dagger while I made the wise, fair Zelda suggest that they give the dagger to the young king so that the dagger finds its way back to its rightful owner…
In the original tale it was the other way around: The daughter wanted to sell the dagger while the father wanted to gift the mortar to the king.
Meaning: In the original tale, the father wanted to do the morally correct thing, but his daughter advised him to do otherwise.
And that didn't sit right with me! After all… I knew that the farmer's daughter was going to be queen! And as such… she ought to do the morally correct thing! That's how stories are: They teach children to be moral! To be good! (…or at least they ought to!)
I didn't like the idea of having my wise, fair Zelda suggest someone to do something that is morally not correct, so I turned things around.
Besides… in The Clever Farmer's Daughter, the reason why the daughter suggested that they sell the mortar seemed… rather weird to me:
She was afraid that if they brought the mortar to the king he'd demand the pestle as well or else they'd be in trouble.
Am I the only one who thinks that sounds weird? Anyhow, just to be save, I invented another reason why my wise, fair Zelda was against the selling of the jeweled silver dagger:
The stolen silver dagger
In the original tale, it never mentioned where the golden mortar came from and how it came to be on the field that the king gave to the farmer and his daughter; for all we know, the fairies could have brought it.
'Dunno how many people would have bothered to wonder and question just where that golden mortar originally came from but I know one thing for certain: I am one of them!
So I had my wise, fair Zelda propose a possible answer to that question:
The dagger was stolen and hidden on their field by some thief!
Not only did that back up her unwillingness to sell the dagger, it also allowed me to show my readers, you guys and gals, just how smart she is!
Sorry to my buddy A Darkened Soul… you thought you knew who stole the thief… unfortunately there is no thief! I didn't bother thinking up one! I didn't think it necessary.
Anyway, not only did her guess explain where the dagger came from, it also explained how it got separated from its sheath!
On to the next detail…
The sale of the dagger
Not much to say about this one… in the original tale the father did the "opposite" of what his daughter advised him and I pretty much stuck to that.
Only difference is that in The Clever Farmer's Daughter, the daughter advised her father to keep/sell the mortar, but her father then goes off to gift it to their king.
In my story of course it went the other way around: My wise, fair Zelda advised her father the old Daphnes to hand over the dagger to the young king but instead he goes off to sell it.
Which leads us to the next alteration…
The just reason and the just king
In The Clever Farmer's Daughter the farmer did the morally correct thing… he brought the golden mortar to his king as a gift… and how did the king react? He demanded of him to hand over the golden pestle as well. When the farmer truthfully said that they hadn't found any it beside the mortar the king didn't believe him and had him imprisoned as punishment.
…doesn't seem very just to me, neither the situation nor the king.
A golden mortar is a very expensive gift if anyone were to ask me, with its golden pestle or not… granted, if anyone offered me a golden pestle I guess I'd be suspicious but if I knew that the gift was sincere no strings attached I think I would be rather grateful!
Most definitely would I not send the guy to the dungeons! (Unless I knew him to be a thief or something like that…)
Which is why I, again, reversed the roles…
The old Daphnes did the morally incorrect thing… he sold the possibly stolen silver dagger, which is not good. Granted, I'm not a policeman but I'm pretty sure buying or selling stolen goods, even if you are not aware that they were stolen, can get you into serious trouble!
Which is what I had happen to the poor old Daphnes… which is why he went into the dungeon… for just reasons.
First, he sold a dagger which was not his, and then he even lied about it, thereby endangering the man to whom he sold the dagger.
As for our young king Link… well, instead of portraying him as a somewhat greedy and ungrateful king like in the original I instead showcased him as a sensible, fair judge and king.
The loving daughter and the search for the missing sheath
In The Clever Farmer's Daughter, it never mentioned what happened to the daughter while her poor unfortunate father was in the dungeons, what she was up to or what she did.
'Didn't sit right with me so I had her do everything she could think of to save her father from the dungeons and later do everything in her powers to get her father out of the dungeons again. This allowed me also to showcase her amazing wits a little more and interact more with our young king Link. One of you guys mentioned before that here in my story Zelda and Link had barely any contact, and so wondered how they could possibly get together… well this helped!
It gave the two of them a few moments together and it also allowed our fair Zelda to impress her king Link!
It also allowed me to show that Link was a compassionate king who truly cared for his people, and not some unjust jerk!
From here on out I pretty much followed the story… somewhere along the line adding the burly landlord Talon and the good Malon as supporting characters; until…
The search to the riddle's answers
Remember the king's riddle?
Come to me, not dressed, not naked,
Come to me, not walked, not carried,
Come to me, not ridden, not driven,
Come to me, not on the path, not off it!
Before I go on, I just want to say that the second line was of my own addition; I felt it necessary to add it because the way I thought about it, the clever farmer's daughter could have solved the riddle had some strong man brought her to the king, carried in his arms… or so I thought back then…
By the way, I was seriously irked that the riddle now had four lines; I dunno, I think three or five lines would have been better.
Back to my story… in the original tale the clever farmer's daughter knew immediately how to solve the riddle; right there on the spot.
Boring, where's the fun in that? Problem with the original tale: If someone immediately can answer a riddle usually that means that they have heard the riddle AND the answer before! Meaning, there's no guarantee that that person really figured the riddle out, using their own wits!
I didn't want that! I wanted my fair Zelda to ACTUALLY figure out the riddle and show how smart she is!
…Which is also by the way why I brought the stern Impa into my story! In the original tale there seemed to be no one stopping anybody else from telling the farmer's daughter how to solve the riddle…
…and where would be the fun in that?!
But kind as I was, I gave my poor Zelda some clues along the way to inspire her…
The fishing net she saw in the market helped her figure out a way to solve the first part of the riddle;
And seeing Epona run all over the farm swinging the poor Ingo around helped her figure out the rest!
The next chapters, how our fair Zelda demonstrated to the good Malon how to solve the riddle, how the good Malon pointed out the flaws in her scheme, how the fair-haired Impa helped, and how the young king came to see the fair Zelda solve the riddle and almost failed her…
Well… long story, short: All that was more or less just for aesthetics, and I think it necessary to elaborate on them.
But there was another big change I feel I have to explain… though I believe I already did so before in the silver dagger:
The cut!
The Clever Farmer's Daughter isa one, single story… and originally, I had intended my story, The Wise Queen of Hyrule (which was the original title of the silver dagger and its sheath), to be just one story as well. A one-shot.
Now… in the original story, the clever farmer's daughter "defeated" the foolish king three times; the first being when she solved the king's riddle. The second "trial" was when the clever farmmaiden had to help restore the foal to the rightful owner, which required her make the king overrule his own hasty decision.
But in the original story it got a little strange in between the first and second trial… after the farmer's daughter solved the king's riddle, the king wanted to marry her; just like that, out of the blue, without any warning!
And the farmer's daughter accepted on the spot; just like that, out of the blue, without any warning!
…which didn't sit right with me! More so that since due to my own machinations, there were no romantic feelings between my fair Zelda and our young king Link. Heck, they weren't even friends!
So… I, once again, decided to change things up a little. I had the both of them go their separate ways again, and let time pass… until the time came for our young king of Hyrule to "return" to our wise, fair Zelda…
And so… I decided to cut the original story into two: The silver dagger and its sheath and The Queen's Most Precious Treasure!
The epilogue of the silver dagger
Well… since I had decided to cut the story I had to invent an ending. More importantly though, in the original tale it never mentioned what happened to the poor farmer who was unjustly imprisoned. Well… I didn't forget about the old Daphnes, did I?
The king's plan
Again, in the original tale, the king wanted to marry the clever farmer's daughter right after she had solved his riddle… which could cause someone, like me, to throw out the following question:
"Why did the king want to marry the farmer's daughter?"
This question becomes all the stronger once you take into consideration the following:
The king and the farmer's daughter barely know one another; or at least… there was no indication in the story that they really knew one another.
The king is a king and the farmer's daughter is a farmer's daughter. Nobles, and especially royalty, do not normally marry one of common birth! Heck, even today people from higher classes often enough do NOT marry one of the lower class!
So… I decided to cudgel my brain again a little to smoothen things out…
Question No.1: Why did young king Link want to marry the wise, fair Zelda?
Answer: It was time for him to marry but he didn't know who to marry. He thought that the wise, fair Zelda might make a good wife (and he might have been smitten by the wise, fair Zelda… )
Question No.2: But they barely know each other!
Answer: Our young king didn't really know ANY girls… in a way, our wise, fair Zelda is the one he knew BEST.
Question No.3: But the wise, fair Zelda is a poor farmer's daughter! She not a princess or anything!
Answer: True, but all the princesses or noble ladies that the young king knows are unworthy to be queen… so he avoided them.
Question No.4: But still! Is he allowed marry a poor farmer's daughter? He's the king of Hyrule!
Answer: …he'll think of something to make it happen…
The unwilling maiden
I've said it before, and I'll say it again…
Man, I love being a turtle!
…
…
…
Sorry, just kidding, 'couldn't resist! But yeah, I know TMNT (who doesn't?)
What I said/wrote before was this…
Right after the clever farmer's daughter solved the young king's riddle, the king immediately wanted to marry her… and she immediately accepted!
…which didn't sit right with me… after all… she didn't have any reason to!
Now… our young king Link had some very valid reasons why he wanted to marry the wise, fair Zelda (after I made them up for him!)
But the wise, fair Zelda… she didn't have ANY reason to marry him! And honestly… I saw no reason for her to marry him either! Which is why I couldn't think of any "excuse" for her deciding to marry him!
…okay, granted… I could have gone for the old love-at-first-sight cliché… but that thing is… cliché.
…and I'm not fond of love stories…
…and this is a fairy tale.
…AND I think that would have been lazy!
And I think I better stop it here before I get carried away…
But of course this led to another problem…
Oopsie!
Most of my story was all about ironing out the flaws and problems of the original tale; in short: Fixing the problems that the Brothers Grimm (may they rest in peace or better yet have a happy afterlife) didn't fix.
…this time though I struggled to fix a problem… which I had created on my own!
In the original tale the king and the farmer's daughter got together… but thanks to my… meddling… our wise, fair Zelda didn't want to marry our young king Link anymore! But try as I might… while it was so easy to make Link marry her despite everything, I found it impossible to… convince our wise, fair Zelda to marry our young king Link!
I SWEAR… I really wanted to come up with something to make her agree… whether she wanted to or not! …but I just came up with nothing!
No idea whatsoever! It was so bad… I just threw in the towel!
And ended up making our wise, fair Zelda do something… stupid.
Granted, I fixed up things a little to make it seem not TOO stupid… but in the end I still think it was a horrible move of mine! Just making her do something strange out of the blue… urgh!
It did turn out to be rather handy in the future though; it helped raise some drama!
…but I still don't like it!
The loss of the foal
Here I didn't deviate that much from the original tale… things proceeded my story pretty much the same way as they did in the original; with one exception:
In the original tale it did not make any sense for the foal to be among the cowherder's cows! Foals don't do that! And if by chance, a silly foal DID get separated from its mother (or its rightful owner), it will immediately run back to its mother's side once it sees her again!
So why didn't that happen?
So… I tweaked things a little… AGAIN! The reason the little red foal left the ill-tempered Ingo was because he was so mean to it! That was also the reason why the foal refused to go back to him!
The cucco hens that lay duck eggs!
In the original tale, the clever farmer's daughter advised the owner of the foal to fish on dry land! And once the king saw, he was to say:
"If a cowherder can own a foal, then I can just as well fish on dry land!"
…or something like that; either way, didn't make much sense to me…
…Okay! The whole situation didn't make sense, but you know what I mean!
Anyway, I thought if the were cows which give birth to red foals, it would make it would make sense for there to be chickens (cuccos) who lay duck eggs or vice versa.
So… I had my wicked, fair Zelda suggest the ill-tempered Ingo to go around looking for cucco hens that lay duck eggs! AND I drew the whole scenario out a little for the sake of fun and humor!
But at the same time it also gave me a couple of instances to raise a little bit of drama…
The return of the red foal
The way I remember things in The Clever Farmer's Daughter… it did not mention whether or not the king admitted his mistake… nor did it mention whether or not he fixed things; meaning whether or not the king had the foal returned to the rightful owner.
Well… here in my story… I made sure that our young king Link set things right again; the red foal returned to the horse-raising Ingo, the cheating cowherder got his rightly deserved punishment, and our young king Link made amends to the ill-tempered Ingo.
'Guess I wanted to show again that he means well but once in a while still screws things up.
The betrayal of the horseraiser
Here I made a BIG deviation from the original tale; In the original tale things went VERY different… as mentioned above, it did not say whether or not the king admitted his mistakes nor whether or not he set things straight again…
Instead, it said that the king had questioned the owner of the foal who gave him the idea fish on dry land. The owner of the foal didn't want to say, for he had promised the clever farmer's daughter that he would not do so, but then the king had him TORTURED until he did!
THAT was ABSOLUTELY not something I wanted my young king Link to do!
But at the same time I had to make the ill-tempered Ingo reveal who gave him the idea to search for cucco hens that lay duck eggs…
At first I had thought to have the ill-tempered Ingo reveal it more or less intentionally, while he was gloating perhaps, but no, that was TOO nasty!
So… I cudgeled my brains a little and came up with that drunk blabber idea… after all; the ill-tempered Ingo scored BIG in the end… aaaaannnd… it is somewhat embarrassing on my part but… whenever I receive my salary… I tend to overspend a little… of course I do not waste away my whole money, no!
…but I do admit that I do tend to overspent when I buy my next groceries…
Anyway, so I thought: Ingo's got a pouch full of money, Ingo is in a spending, celebrating mood!
So how do men usually spend their money? How do they usually celebrate? Drinking! Bring out the beer! Bring out the whiskey! Bring out the booze!
And well… alcohol can loosen lips (among other things)… so I thought to myself: Let's have the Ingo drink himself merry and stupid and reveal to the whole world who told him to go looking for cucco hens that lay duck eggs!
The regret of the farmmaiden
At this point here in the original tale things happened very fast… the king got angry at the clever farmer's daughter and sent her home.
I'm not kidding, it really went like that, that quickly!
But I wasn't okay with that… I decided to draw things out a little… timing's important after all…
But most importantly, it gave me the opportunity to have our fair Zelda realize the error of her ways and finally sort out her feelings! After all, that's what was missing! And that was what I needed to bring them together!
The sneaky vixen's plan
In the original tale things went by pretty quickly here as well:
The king allowed the clever farmer's daughter to take that with her that is most precious to her and she drugged him.
Again, I decided to draw things out a little.
First I had my sly, fair Zelda fight to convince our young king Link to allow her to take a memento with her… after all… she sure made him angry! Why in the world would he offer her to take a farewell gift with her?
'Wasn't planning on mentioning the Law of Surprise or Geralt and Durry, but when I got to that scene… it sounded so much like the Law of Surprise to me… I just HAD to mention it, XD! It's not like I harmed the author's livelihood in doing so; quite the contrary I'd say! Free advertisement!
(By the way… I am currently working on LOZ-Witcher crossover artwork… or rather rough sketch!)
Anyway, first I had our fair Zelda had to convince our young king to allow her to take something with her, and then I had her… "conspire" with the stern Impa so that she could get her hands on her most precious treasure! (It didn't mention how the clever farmer's daughter was able to drug her king, )
Those chapters sure were fun to write, especially after all the drama!
Special thanks to Brian Jacques, the author of the Redwall Novels! I'll try to make this as spoiler-free as possible: In the Novel "The Outcast of Redwall" there was a scene where a young upstart offered wine to an old warlord… and he was smart enough to apply the poison to the silver chalice and to not put it into the wine directly! That was my inspiration for this scene.
My last real change was my addition of an epilogue; the original tale pretty much ended after the king was so moved to be what was most precious to his wife that he forgave her. You know… the typical "And they lived happily ever after…" Grimm ending.
I decided to draw things out again a little and try to tie off all loose ends.
I think that was all the changes I made… or at least all of the major ones; if there is any detail you want to know more about, why I did it and for what reason, just let me know here in the comments!