I’m on a writing retreat this weekend, so this blog post will be short on analysis as I’m busy on edits for my upcoming Beauty and the Beast release.
This week, Iron John caught my attention in our #GRIMMread2019 challenge. Not only because we see another royal offspring playing with a golden ball, but also because of the lighthearted romance.
Brief summary: The story opens with a king declaring a forest off limits because everything that goes in doesn’t come out. One day, a man figures out what the problem is—there’s a wild man living there, whom they capture and keep in a cage in the courtyard.
When the prince’s gold ball rolls into the cage, the wild man will only give it back if the boy unlocks the cage (penalty for doing so is death). Eventually, the boy gives in and the wild man takes the prince with him in the forest in order to save his life. While in the forest, the boy accidentally touches the water that turns things to gold and turns his hair to gold
The golden-haired prince grows up and works as a gardener at a neighboring kingdom.
Enter the princess…
The princess in this new kingdom notices the unusual gardener’s assistant and his hair, along with his curious ways. But he plays hard to get! Even after the king goes to war and the prince-in-disguise becomes a knight-in-disguise who comes to the rescue.
When the reward is handed out, the prince hides his identity by becoming first a red knight, then a white knight, then a black knight.
The king summons the gardener’s helper to get to the bottom of who he is. The princess is quick to whip off his hat to show everyone his golden hair. He finally admits to being a prince.
The king asks him what he wants, and he asks to marry his daughter.
The maiden laughed, and said, “He does not stand much on ceremony, but I have already seen by his golden hair that he was no gardener’s boy,” and then she went and kissed him.
I enjoyed the lightheartedness of this tale. The princess, though we only see a little bit of her, is playful, and there seems to be some good old-fashioned flirting going on between the two.
