THE STORY OF PRINCE FAIRYFOOT

PART I

Once upon a time, in the days of the fairies, there was in the far west
country a kingdom which was called by the name of Stumpinghame. It was a
rather curious country in several ways. In the first place, the people
who lived there thought that Stumpinghame was all the world; they thought
there was no world at all outside Stumpinghame. And they thought that the
people of Stumpinghame knew everything that could possibly be known, and
that what they did not know was of no consequence at all.

One idea common in Stumpinghame was really very unusual indeed. It was a
peculiar taste in the matter of feet. In Stumpinghame, the larger a
person's feet were, the more beautiful and elegant he or she was
considered; and the more aristocratic and nobly born a man was, the more
immense were his feet. Only the very lowest and most vulgar persons were
ever known to have small feet. The King's feet were simply huge; so were
the Queen's; so were those of the young princes and princesses. It had
never occurred to anyone that a member of such a royal family could
possibly disgrace himself by being born with small feet. Well, you may
imagine, then, what a terrible and humiliating state of affairs arose
when there was born into that royal family a little son, a prince, whose
feet were so very small and slender and delicate that they would have
been considered small even in other places than Stumpinghame. Grief and
confusion seized the entire nation. The Queen fainted six times a day;
the King had black rosettes fastened upon his crown; all the flags were
at half-mast; and the court went into the deepest mourning. There had
been born to Stumpinghame a royal prince with small feet, and nobody knew
how the country could survive it!

Yet the disgraceful little prince survived it, and did not seem to mind
at all. He was the prettiest and best tempered baby the royal nurse had
ever seen. But for his small feet, he would have been the flower of the
family. The royal nurse said to herself, and privately told his little
royal highness's chief bottle-washer that she "never see a infant as took
notice so, and sneezed as intelligent." But, of course, the King and
Queen could see nothing but his little feet, and very soon they made up
their minds to send him away. So one day they had him bundled up and
carried where they thought he might be quite forgotten. They sent him to
the hut of a swineherd who