Online The Enchanted princess- original watercolour

Original watercolour featuring German fairy tale by Bechstein "The Enchanted Princess".

The watercolour measures 21X29 cm or 8.30x 11.7 inch and is NOT framed.

It will be sent in a protective sleeve with a sturdy cardboard.

The price includes shipping per UPS, tracking number will be provided.


The Enchanted Princess (L. Bechstein)

A poor craftsman has two sons called Henry and John. Harry arrogant and selfish while John is good and kind hearted. The craftsman favours his eldest son, whom he sees as corageous and brave, while he sees John as weak and stupid.

One the craftsman stops at an inn and overhears a conversation going on between two men saying that the Princess has been kidnapped and placed under a spell in the castle by an evil sorcerer. Whoever accepts the challenge must complete three hard tasks, but if he succeeds he will win the Princess' hand.

The craftsman immediately returns home and asks Henry to attempt this challenge. His eldest son agrees.

After saying goodbye to his family, he goes through a forest that surrounds the sorcerer's castle. As he rides through he destroys, a beehive leaving the bees homeless, tramples an anthill, and kills some ducks near a pond.

He eventually reaches the castle and bangs on the door impatiently. An old woman comes out and tells him to come back to the castle the day after.

The next morning, he returns to the castle and the old woman appears with a basket full of seeds. She scatters them all over the grass and tells Henry that as his first task he has one hour to pick all the seeds up and place them back in the basket.

She leaves him and Henry laughs out loud at what he sees as a pointless task and goes off for a walk instead. When he comes back the woman is very angry that he did not even attempt the task.

Next she takes twelve golden keys and throws them into a pond. As his second task has one hour to get all of them back.

Once again she leaves him and again Henry doesn't attempt the task and goes for a walk instead. He comes back in an hour and the woman is angry with him once more.

She gives him one last chance to complete the challenge. She takes Henry into the castle to a room with three veiled figures. As his third task Henry has to guess which one of the three veiled figures is the princess. Henry hastily chooses the figure on the right which turns out to be a dragon and kills him.

Sometime later John decides to take up the challenge and takes the same path through the forest helping rebuild the anthill and the beehive, and sharing his breakfast with some ducks.

He arrives at the castle and politely asks the woman if he can attempt the challenge. The woman asks him to come back on the following day and when he does she gives him the task with the seeds. John attempts and suddenly a long line of ants appear and pick up every single seed, placing them back in the basket. John is very grateful and thanks them.

The old woman returns and is very pleased at John's progress. She again drops the twelve keys into the pond and when all seems hopeless, the ducks he met in the forest retrieve each one of the keys for him, John is once again very grateful and thanks them.

The old woman returns and is very impressed. She takes John to the room with the three veiled figures. John online is pondering over his decision when the bees fly through the window and buzz around the figure in the middle, which he eventually chooses. The veil falls revealing the princess.