The Bear and the Bow

"The Bear and the Bow"

Once upon a time there was a Princess named Bethie. She lived in the faraway land of Emmhummm, a land of vibrant forests and beautiful lakes, ringed by mountains on three sides, and the sea on another. Princess Bethie was good at a lot of things. She excelled at archery, at horseback riding, and at hunting, but there was one thing she was rather terrible at.

Being a princess.

She loved to sneak out in the early mornings while the bakers were still warming their ovens in the castle's mighty kitchen. Bethie would steal a warm loaf of bread and sneak out barefoot into the wilderness, hair a tangled mess.

Eventually the king's men would find her, somewhere deep in the evergreens. Even as a little girl the forest was her second home, and as she grew up, she learned in secret the ways of the forest. She learned how to track deer, to climb trees, and often went swimming in some of Emmhummm's crocodile infested lakes. Meanwhile, her mother the queen struggled in vain to teach her how to be a princess.

Music, art and entertaining, a world within a world seemed to live within the castle. Servants and teachers and guests in an endless array, but Bethie had no patience for any of it. It was too small of a world, and far too stuffy.

On the morning of Bethie's nineteenth birthday she was nibbling a loaf of bread, racing through the trees, when she suddenly realized something unusual had happened.

She was lost.

The princess wandered for hours until she stumbled into a clearing she had never seen before. In the center of that clearing was a bear, a bear far larger than any the girl had ever seen before.

Bethie tried to shrink back, but the enormous bear had noticed the girl at once. "Come forth, child." The bear commanded. Bethie was many things but fearful was not among them. She stepped forward, curious.

"What sort of bear are you?" she asked.

"I am no bear! I am the prince of Danefield!" The bear replied.

"Oh," the startled girl replied. "You look a lot like a bear."

"I was turned into a bear by a wicked man with a magic bow. He launched an arrow and transformed me into this beast you see before you."

"That sounds like a tall tale to me," the girl replied.

"But a talking bear doesn't give you any trouble?" After a bit of explaining, the princess decided she ought to help the prince. Not because he was a prince, especially, but because he was a bear. He seemed a part of the peaceful forest she loved so much.

The selfish prince took her help without a second thought, and the two set off. They journeyed far, to the edge of Emmhummm, where the trees faded into snow capped mountains. There they found a smallish hut perched out upon the edge of a rocky cliff.

Princess Bethie rapped upon the door and found a leather clad hunter soon stared her in the face, a hunter with a bow and quiver strapped to his back. "What is it, little wretch?" He replied, even more gruffly than the bear-prince. Bethie did not like that at all. Then the hunter saw the bear. "Getting a lassie to fight your battles for you, eh Gerald?" The hunter asked, guffawing.

"Well, I wouldn't need to if you weren't using a magic bow to fight yours!" Gerald the bear replied.

"Perhaps you ought to turn him back..." Bethie replied, a bit uncomfortably.

"Perhaps." The hunter replied. "But he was poaching on my land, and I did as was my right! So perhaps I ought to turn you into a duck!" He began to notch an arrow to his bow, but Bethie was faster. She whipped her arm up and hit the hunter's wrist before he could fire. The arrow thudded harmlessly into the cabin's thatch ceiling, turning a bit of hay into a very surprised duckling.

Bethie slipped behind the hunter and grabbed an arrow from his quiver. She tapped it against the man's neck, and was suddenly dealing with a very irate hog dressed like a man. She quickly snatched up the bow lying on the ground and relieved the pig of his arrows. So armed, she burst from the house, and ran out into the night. She ran all the way back to her castle, taking a great deal of time to find her way back.

By the time she arrived, it was very late. The king and queen were waiting by the fire in the dining hall, hoping to hear word of their daughter's return. When she burst into the hall, filthy with mud and bear fur, they ran to greet her. But before they could, she tapped each of them with an arrow.

Soon enough, the king had become a llama, and the queen, an unexpectedly massive goose. In later years, long after Bethie had become queen, she would still wander through her beloved forest. Sometimes she would hear the sounds of a bear and a pig arguing. Sometimes she took her llama father, other times she rode upon the back of her mother goose, soaring through the air. She used the bow to rule all the land, governing fairly in most cases, although at times she was as hotheaded as one would expect a woman who had ruthlessly turned her mother into a goose might be.

Strangely enough, Bethie's mother goose became a great listener in her avian state. She took note of all the stories she heard, no matter how strange, and transformed them into nursery rhymes.

And that is how the legend of Mother Goose began.