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Tale Summary

Once upon a time, a king’s beautiful wife was on her deathbed, and had her husband promise not to remarry unless he found someone just as pretty as her, and with such golden hair as she had. No one in the land could match her beauty, until his daughter had grown up and was the spitting image of her mother. The king decided to have her married to one of his councilors so that they would become the new king and queen, but the princess was not pleased and did not want to marry. To stall the wedding, she requested that first she must have three dresses; one as golden as the sun, one as silver as the moon, and one as shining as the stars. She also demanded a cloak made out of all the different types of animals of the kingdom. These seemingly impossible tasks were completed, and so the princess masked her face with soot, put on her fur cloak, and ran away to avoid the marriage, taking the three dresses, a gold ring, a little gold spinning-wheel, and a gold reel with her. She traveled through the forest into a nearby kingdom, and the next day the king and his hunters found her and marveled at what a strange creature she was. She begged to go with them, and so they showed her a tiny room under the stairs of the castle to live and was given a job doing dirty work in the kitchen. It came time that a great feast was to be held, and the Many-Furred Creature begged the cook to let her watch, and he agreed that she could be gone for a half-hour. The princess cleaned her skin and put on the dress as golden as the sun, and everyone at the feast was amazed by her beauty, including the king, who danced with her and thought he had never seen any maiden so fair. After the dance ended she ran off to transform back into the Many-Furred Creature, and the cook gave her the task of cooking soup for the king. She made a delicious bread-soup and dropped her golden ring into it. The king was puzzled by the ring in his soup, and found that the Many-Furred Creature had prepared it, but she would not admit it was her ring when questioned. After some time there was another feast, and again the princess was allowed time to watch, and this time cleaned herself and wore the dress as silver as the moon. She danced with the king again, which pleased him, and disappeared afterwards to change into the Many-Furred Creature. She again prepared bread-soup and placed inside her tiny golden spinning-wheel, which again confused the king but she would not let on that she had put it there. The cook was growing frustrated with the girl because the king always liked her soup more, and it took more begging for her to attend the third feast. She put on the dress as shining as the stars and danced again with the king, and he placed a gold ring on her finger without her noticing. The dance lasted longer than usual and when the princess broke away she did not have time to change, and instead draped the many-furred cloak over her dress, and did not use enough soot to cover her skin on her finger. She made bread-soup for the king and dropped her gold reel in it, and this time when he questioned her about it he noticed the gold ring and the white finger, and tore the cloak off to reveal that she was the princess he had danced with. They were wed and lived happily ever after.

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