The Prince Who Had No Heart


Once, in a land never far, there was a bountiful kingdom ruled by a beautiful king and queen. For many years, they tried to have a child, to no avail, so when their first child was born, there was great joy throughout the kingdom.


Now, the child was born under some ill-sign of the moon, and he cried for three days and three nights following his birth. After the third night, however, the crying stopped, and I will tell you why: the child had been replaced by a young faerie. His parents had no knowledge of this, and the nurses that tended to him were so fatigued from their long hours awake that the cessation of the wailing was cause for relief, and not suspicion.


The prince grew up healthy and hale, and played with the courtier’s children and laughed and leaped for joy as children are wont to do. The first sign that something was amiss came on his sixth birthday, when his parents sent for the kingdom’s top physician—they were quite modern, this king and queen, and themselves made somewhat regular appointments to keep appraised of their own health.


The physician looked the prince up and down and up, and measured his reflexes, looked in his ears, and finally brought his stethoscope to the prince’s chest, to listen to his heart. The physician said nothing to the prince, but took aside the king and queen and said, “Your son has no heart.”


And the king and the queen said, “What, no, he has to have a heart! We have seen him bleed when he scrapes his knee, we have seen him breathe and laugh and play! How could he do all this without a heart?”


“I have heard the heartbeat of a butterfly and of a mollusk, and I tell you, the price has no heart,” the physician insisted. “I know not how he is able to run and breathe and bleed—try a seer, or a witch, this is out of my purview.”


The king and the queen were in quite a state as the physician left, and began right away to contact local fortune tellers, seers, witch-doctors and sages, but none could tell them why the prince had no heart. The prince without a heart knew nothing of this, for his parents kept it from him so he would grow up with as much normalcy as a prince could know.


Things proceeded in this way until the night of the prince’s thirteenth birthday party. An old woman came to the north gate, the smallest door onto the palace grounds, and knocked three times. When the guards opened the door, she pointed at them, and said with finality, “Your son has no heart, and I know why.”


Now, both of the guards were very confused, because one of them was childless, and the other had a daughter. When they explained this, the old woman shook her head. “Somebody here has a son with no heart.”


The guards looked at one another—surely a child with no heart would have been noted in the palace gossip, and they had heard nothing of the like. But the woman insisted and would not leave. Finally, the guards agreed to go and fetch their captain, who would hopefully know more than they did.


“Stay here,” the guards told the old woman, and they went to find the captain. The old woman did not stay there, but wound her way through the palace and knocked three times at the door to the king and queen’s quarters. The king came to the door, and as he stood confused, the old woman pointed and said again, “Your son has no heart, and I know why.”


The king’s eyes widened, and he ushered her inside. To the queen, he said, “She says she knows why our son has no heart.”


“I know why your son has no heart,” the old woman said. “He is a changeling, a faerie-thing, not the creature you birthed. Faerie-things have no hearts, not even here.”


And the king and the queen were horrified—they had hoped for relief, once they knew the nature of the prince’s ailment. The queen asked, “So, is there any way to fix it?”


“There is nothing to fix. The prince should not have a heart, he is a faerie.” The old woman turned to leave, having said her piece, but paused at the door to the chamber. “If you want to get your flesh-and-blood son back, and lose the heartless one, I can show you how, if you give me three gold.”


“Now,” the king said, “we do not wish to lose the son we have, for we have raised him as our blood, and we care for him, heartless or no.”


The old woman smiled. “To keep both is a rarity, but I will see if that can be arranged. Give me the gold, and in three days’ time, meet me at the north gate, and bring the prince without a heart. If I am there, there will be hope of this.”


The king and the queen gave her three pieces of gold, which was all she would take, despite them offering ten times as much, and in three days, the king and the queen and the prince without a heart gathered by the north gate. Sure enough, the old woman was waiting on the other side, and she pointed at the prince without a heart immediately and said, “You have no heart. Do you know this?”


And the prince without a heart said, “There are people who have hearts? They are not just for the other animals?”


“Your mother and father each have a heart, and as do all of your playmates. You have never been held close, and never heard their heartbeats, and never realized you should have one of your own. You are a changeling child, a faerie, and faerie have no hearts.”


The prince without a heart had time to think about this, as the old woman lead him and the king and queen into a deep, dark portion of the forest. He said, at last, to his parents, “Will you leave me there, in Faerieland?”


“No, no, no!” the king and the queen said at once. “You will have a brother, and you both will live with us.” The prince without a heart smiled at this, and his worry seemed to dissolve.


The old woman cleared her throat, for they had arrived at the entrance to a winding labyrinth. “Now, when you hear a crow croak thrice, go right, and when you hear a sparrow twice, go left. If you hear a squirrel chirp, you’ve gone the wrong way. Should you hear the squirrel’s call three times in sum, you shall be trapped for-ever in the labyrinth, never to go home.


“This is as far as I may go,” she said, and vanished in a sudden, sharp breeze.


The king and the queen and the prince without a heart wound their way through the labyrinth, following the crow and sparrow. Once, they heard a squirrel chirp, and quickly corrected their path. They came at last to a long and straight road, but heard when they had reached the end a squirrel chirp again. When they turned around to trace their steps, the wall had closed behind them, and the king and the queen began to fret, knowing that if they heard the squirrel one more time, they would be trapped for-ever.


The prince without a heart, however, was not in such a despairing state, for he heard the faint sound of flute music, and pressed his ear to the ground, and heard it clearer. “Mother, father,” he said, but they did not hear him over their fretting. “Mother, father, I hear something,” the prince tried again, to no avail. “Mother, father, I know how to go to Faerieland,” the prince without a heart said loudly, and this broke through his parents’ fear, and they both turned to him.


“We cannot go back, we cannot go left, we cannot go right. There is nothing above us, so Faerieland must be down and down and down!”


As the prince without a heart spoke those words, the ground opened up beneath the three of them, and all descended down and down and down, and into Faerieland.


A faerie lady met them there, and looked them over, her gaze settling finally upon the prince without a heart, who said, “We are here to get my brother back.”


The faerie lady laughed and laughed and laughed. “You’ll have both the changeling and the flesh-one? Ha! Well, if you can pick which of our court was once your son, then he can go with you, but if you fail, the three of you will stay in Faerieland.”


The king and the queen were quite taken aback, and nearly turned around to return home without the son they came for. But the prince without a heart stepped forward, and said, “I will find my twin-self.”


The faerie lady led them into an enormous courtyard, where there reveled thousands upon thousands of faerie. The king and the queen and the prince without a heart spent hours searching amongst them for the stolen prince, but found none who looked like the prince who had no heart. Finally, the prince without a heart had an idea, and walked to the center of the courtyard.


“Anyone who can fit in my golden shoes may have them!” he proclaimed. There was some murmuring, but none stepped forward.


“Anyone who can fit in my golden necklace and my golden shoes may have them both!” Again, some chatter, but not enough.


“Anyone who can fit into my golden crown, my golden necklace, and my golden shoes shall have them all, and my kingdom besides!” At this, the murmur was much louder, and a small faerie stepped forward. He looked nothing like the prince, until he began to don his golden garments. As he put on the golden shoes, his legs looked like those of the prince. As he put on the golden necklace, his torso looked like that of the prince. As he put on the crown, he looked the spitting image of the prince from top to toe.


“I have found my double,” said the prince without a heart, and the two embraced. And so the brothers and their parents left from Faerieland, and lived a happy life.