Von Schonwerth’s “The Scorned Princess”

Von Schonwerth’s “The Scorned Princess” 

Three soldiers are finished with their tour of duty, and they are camping in the forest on their way home.  Having built a bonfire to protect themselves, they each guard against the night successively, and each is approached by an old woman seeking warmth by the fire.  Each in his turn refuses, but relents when offered a magical gift (a hat that whisks one to a wished destination, a horn that calls forth armies of the exiled, and a purse of gold that never empties).  The next day they continue on and only reveal their experiences to each other after Fortunatus pays for their meal with his magic purse.  He continues to pay their way until they go their separate ways – the other two to marry and settle, Fortunatus to live a worldly life.  

Now Fortunatus and his retinue come to a kingdom and he is invited to the castle since the king thinks he must be a wealthy prince.  The princess, interested in him, grows enamored when he refuses to marry her.  She plies him with food and wine and he reveals her secret, and she replaces his purse with a forgery and kicks him out.  Back on the road, his funds dwindle, his servants leave him and he is reduced to the station of a beggar. So he goes to his old mate, who recuperates him, giving him the Hermes hat, which lay around unused, to boot.  

The Fortunate hero returns to the princess and the same process repeats.  He goes to his other mate, whom he’d also taken care of, and he is taken care of in turn.  This time he gets the unused martial cornucopia, and he returns to the city a conqueror at the head of an army.  The king begs parley, and the worldly soldier is again fooled with wine and woman.  He is to be executed but is saved from death by the princess, who still hopes his mind will change.  

Destitute and starving on the road again, he spots a luscious apple tree, but taking a bite of a fruit, a horn sprouts from his forehead.  Moving on, he decides to eat from another he sees, and the horn disappears.  Now he gathers apples in a cart, and in the city within eyeshot of the prince’s chambers, he sells enough to buy new clothes and disguise himself.  The princess and her maid cannot resist the best apples he puts within their view and cries are heard throughout the castle when horns sprout on their foreheads.  A general call for help is put out but no one shows up.  

Fortunatus, now disguised as a healing priest, proves his abilities by curing the maid first.  Now with the princess, he tells her to confess her sins, else the cure won’t work.  She admits to the seduction and thefts, and shows him the items, but the apple he gives her sprouts a second horn.  He takes the hat, whisks off to the city’s outskirts, calls up his army, and burns the city to the ground.  The king, princess, and the whole court perish in the flames, and he ruled the land as king for a long time.  

This story might be troublesome when viewed from a certain moral perspective – Fortunatus, after all, can be seen as a cruel and vengeful conqueror.  But I look at it as a story about basic justice.  First, the first two soldiers choose a life of moderation – they don’t even use their magical items – and they get and give moderately, and are presumably happy.  Now Fortunatus chooses a worldly life, living large, and so he enters the world of drama, of striving and strife, which is a kind of Darwinian and political competition, and he suffers humiliation, starvation, and near death.  The naive king and princess, protected by the castle walls and bolstered by their position, do not understand this world, and they suffer in confusion because of their ignorance and egoism. The royals have stumbled into the Machiavellian world, but they do not know it. And when they, at different times, make naive decisions – like the first invitation, or letting Fortunatus escape execution – in the classic formulation, this hubris leads to their nemesis, their downfall.

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About our guest:

Ian Reclusado is currently off exp