Long, long ago, when the world was so full of magic that even the smallest stone
could hold a thousand secrets,
there was a palace that was alive. Because it slept all the time,
nobody knew its secret. It remained that way until the Princess who
lived there married a Prince who was a brave and strong warrior but had such a bad temper that even the smallest inconvenience would cause him to hurl things around and slam doors and windows. After his
last victory, he let the kind
and sweet Princess leave the palace to travel and negotiate the peace, leaving the
Prince to live alone for a long time.
The Prince’s boredom caused his bad temper to
grow worse and, with the passing days, more and more marks and dents appeared on the walls and
floors of the palace, which grew dirty and neglected. One day, when the Prince
went out, the palace - annoyed
at how it was being treated -
woke up and moved for the first time in many years. It decided to hide
behind a hill but was so big that it didn’t take long for the Prince to
find it again.
The palace
tried to escape many times but
the Prince would always find it easily and then unleash his fury, causing more and more damage.
One night, having grown tired of the Prince’s actions, the palace
locked all its doors and windows while the Prince slept. It ran for
days and days, ignoring the damage
and destruction the Prince was
causing while trapped inside. When the palace finally stopped and
opened its doors, the Prince discovered that they were surrounded by
ice and snow, in the midst of
the most horrible cold.
“The North Pole? How do I get out of
here?” wondered the Prince as he explored his new surroundings.
After
searching all morning and finding nothing, the Prince decided to go
back to the palace to warm up. However, when he tried to open the door
he found it locked. He banged
on the door furiously but all
he managed to do was destroy his near-frozen hands. After a while, the
door opened slightly and the Prince ran towards it, only for it to slam
in his face.
“Stupid
palace! It seems angry with me!”
The palace was
indeed angry with the Prince and shook all its windows to let him know.
“So that’s the
way you want it?” shouted the Prince.
“Well, get
ready, because this is war. And I have never lost a battle.”
In the days
that followed, the Prince and the palace had the strangest fight imaginable. While the Prince tried
to get in by breaking the windows, the palace did whatever it could to
keep him out. In the middle of that crazy war, the cold began to freeze
the Prince’s feet and crack the palace walls. When he was almost
completely frozen solid, the Prince - winner of a thousand battles -
realized that the only way to win this one would be to make peace. And
so the Prince began to repair
the palace and to control his anger and fury so as not to damage it
again. The palace soon realized that it liked the repairs much more
than the stupid fighting and that only that brutish Prince could do them. Soon
enough, the palace opened its doors to allow the Prince to shelter from the cold at night, and
clean and repair by day.
Much to his
surprise, the Prince discovered that he really enjoyed doing the
repairs and in no time the palace looked magnificent once again. So much so,
that one night it finally forgave
the Prince, closed its doors and ran all the way back to its country.
They arrived
just before the Princess, who was delighted with the sway the palace
looked and the improved character
of her husband, now barely interested in wars and fighting any more.
The lasting peace and the Prince’s repairs meant the palace could
finally resume its silent
sleep.
The only thing
anyone knows about this unique
palace is that it was taken down stone by stone and distributed around
the world. Some of the stones could well be part of your house today,
so don’t let your anger and temper cause it any damage...
THE END
