This is the goose girl story for kids. Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom, the Queen told her beautiful daughter, “Your hand has been promised to the Prince of Shazaam. You must leave for your betrothed’s home at once. Take your maid and Falada, your talking horse with you.” Just as the Princess was about to start on her journey, the Queen gave her a handkerchief with three drops of her blood on it and said, “Whenever you have doubts, hold this handkerchief close to your heart and it will help you. Now leave at once!”
The Princess started on her long journey to her betrothed’s house. On the way, her maid started misbehaving with her and refused to run her errands. Instead, she told the Princess, “From this point on, you shall be my maid and I shall be the Princess. If you tell anyone that you are the Princess, you shall be cursed.”
The Princess relented and exchanged all her belongings with the maid even her precious Falada. The Princess was very sad and as she wiped away her tears with her mother’s blood-stained handkerchief, it spoke, “If your mother were to know about this, it would break her heart.” The Princess, therefore, decided to keep her bargain a secret and resumed her journey.
On reaching her destination, the maid declared to the Prince, who thought her to be the Princess, “My maid is of no use to me anymore. It is best that you use her for some other work.” Later, she got Falada beheaded lest it spoke. Thus, the noble Princess was asked to assist a boy called Curdken in herding geese. The young Goose Girl did her job dutifully and tried to make peace with her new life.
One day, Curdken and the Princess got into a fight and in a fit of rage, Curdken went to the King and declared, “I don’t like this new girl that you have assigned to help me. I think some very strange things always happen around her.” The King replied, “All right, let her take the geese out today and this time, I shall follow her and see what she does!” That afternoon, when the Princess was walking the geese, the King followed her.
Seeing that she was indeed a very nice and sweet girl, the King decided to have a chat with her. “Tell me a story that is close to your heart,” the King asked the Princess. She replied, “I wish I could, but I am under oath never to speak of it to anyone.” Realizing that the Princess was in some trouble, the King said, “Why don’t you tell the story to that large boulder there? That would not be breaking your oath!” The Princess did so and without her knowledge, the King overheard the entire tale of the Princess.
That evening at the great banquet, the old King recounted the tale of the maid who was pretending to be the Princess and then asked, “If you were in my place, what punishment would you give the evil maid?” Without realizing that the King was actually referring to her own story, the maid replied, “Why, such an evil person should be flogged and then banished from the Kingdom, your Majesty!”
The King smiled and turning to his guards, he said, “Take this imposter away and make sure that she is banished from the Kingdom tomorrow morning, but only after she has been flogged.” The King then sent for the Goose Girl. The Princess was once again given her fine gown to wear and with great fanfare, she was married off to the Prince. The couple lived happily ever after.
