“The Princess of Colchester.” Fairy Gold : A Book of Old English Fairy Tales Chosen by Ernest Rhys, Ernest Rhys, London: J.M. Dent & Co.; New York : E.P. Dutton & co., 1907, pp. 65-69.

Tale Summary

Long before King Arthur, there was a king in the eastern part of England who kept his Court at Colchester, who was left with his beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter when his wife died. The king remarried with an ugly, horrible woman on account of her wealth, and she had a daughter much the same as herself. They turned the king against his own daughter with rumors, and the girl asked him to be given a small pittance so that she may leave and seek her fortune in the world. He consented, and her mother-in-law gave her only brown bread, hard cheese, and a bottle of beer. After giving thanks and making her way through woods and valleys, the princess met an old man sitting at the mouth of a cave. She offered him what little she had of bread, cheese, and beer, and he gladly partook. He gave her a wand and told her that there was a thick hedge ahead which would open if she waved it. He also told her that she would come to a well with three gold heads, and she should do anything they ask of her. The princess went through the hedge and met the heads at the well, and each asked this of her:

“Wash me, and comb me,

And lay me down softly.”

She did this for each of them gently with a silver comb and placed them on a primrose bank. The heads blessed her for her kindness, the first giving her grace to match her beauty, the second with a flowery fragrance, and the third with the gift that, as a king’s daughter, she should be so fortunate to become queen to the greatest prince in the land. The princess had not traveled much further when she met a king hunting in the woods, and he immediately fell in love with her. They were brought back to his palace and married, and when it was revealed that she was the daughter of the King of Colchester, the couple paid them a visit. The Court was pleased to see how fortunate the princess had been, who was given a dowry. The queen and her daughter were envious, and so preparations were made for the sister-in-law to seek her own fortune. She was packed with many riches, foods, drinks, and sweets, but when she met the same old man on her path, she rudely refused to let him taste any of them. He cursed her, and she tried going through the hedge but became stuck in the thorns. The unpleasant girl searched for water for her wounds, and came across the well with the three golden heads. They asked her the same as her step-sister, but she only threw a bottle at them. They cursed her, the first giving her leprosy, the second turning her hair into a packthread, and the third bestowing on her a poor country cobbler as a husband. The girl traveled into a town where all ran from her, except for a poor cobbler, who happened to have ointment which was a cure for leprosy. He asked that if he restored her complexion she would agree to marry him, and she agreed. The couple went back to the Court of Colchester, where the queen was so upset at her daughter’s fate that she hung herself. The king was glad to be rid of her, and gave the cobbler a hundred pounds to take the unpleasant girl to a remote part of the kingdom, and there they lived for many years.