A Princess of Stony Words

Once upon a time there lived a princess who could not utter a kind word. She constantly teased and insulted everyone around her. Even for her father, the king, she could not find a nice word. The victims of her unfriendliness were the governess, a ballet master, a spinet teacher, a cook, and a gardener. The nurse was convinced that the girl had once swallowed an evil dwarf’s grain of a fiery pepper, which burned her throat every time she wanted to say something kind. The nurse also claimed something else: "Every pepper grain has its bane." Nevertheless, one day a prince appeared, asking for the princess's hand, and although she also showered him with unfriendliness, he insisted on taking her as his wife and bringing her to his court. But even there she stayed the same, and the princess's insults went so far that the prince's staff wanted to leave the court. The prince finally called his wizard for help. And wizard told them very similar thing as princess’s nurse: "Every pepper grain has its cane!" When she showered him with insults, the wizard put a spell on her, causing every sour and horrid word, she uttered, to transform itself into a stone cube. The princess was soon walled up behind high walls! She stayed silent for a long, long time, so long that in her silence the evil dwarf’s grain of the fiery pepper disappeared. Only then she began timidly uttering kind words she once had but were somehow lost. The beautiful words turned into rainbow bubbles that slowly shattered the solid walls. Since then, the princess always found kind words for everyone, and especially for her prince! 

English text available upon request