Grimmer Fairy Tales

Once upon a time in a land far, far away (since that's the way all good legends start) in a castle on the tallest hill, there lived an angry prince. Those who remembered the prince's parents, the goodly king and queen, rarely spoke of them and the happy days of the kingdom, now a distant memory. They merely sighed sadly when the palace came into view. They remembered the joyful little boy the prince had been, but after the tragic death of his parents he'd grown callous and cruel. He locked himself in his castle, letting no one in but the servants and royal guard. A candle could be seen gleaming from the tower room at all hours of the day and night, the prince distancing himself from the world for he could no longer bear to see a smiling face or hear the sound of laughter. And so his subjects went about their lives in the gloomy kingdom where the sun no longer shined, leaving the prince to grow into a young man behind the silent stones of the palace. Then, one day, four riders emerged from the creaking, rusty drawbridge, setting off in the four directions of the kingdom's confines. The villagers eagerly gathered for the proclamation, the first to leave the palace in longer than anyone could remember. Once they heard it, their eagerness turned to worry and dread. The angry prince whom they assumed would live and die alone in his crumbling castle was lonely and searching for a bride.