The Beautiful Maiden and the Cottage in the Woods

Once upon a time there was a beautiful maiden. All the eligible princes of the land yearned for her hand, but she was quite difficult to please. They brought her gifts of flowers and jewels, livestock and elixirs, silks and all the foreign delicacies one could imagine. But each and every gift she refused.

Frustrated with these lackluster lads, she hastily escaped from the watchful eyes of her guardians, out her bedroom window and off into the nearby forest. No moonlight shone down in that late hour, and as she wandered on she became afraid. A wolf howled from behind her and she felt eyes peering at her from every ghastly crevice of the thick wood. Starting to run, she quickly stumbled as her dress caught on a branch. Terrified, she looked up, only to see a small cottage enlightened by a low fire within. She entered cautiously and found inside an old woman.

"What brings you here, my dear?" the woman inquired. And the maiden replied, "The richest of the royals have asked for my hand, but they favor me only for my looks. I had to get away!" And with an eery smile the old woman exclaimed, "I have just the thing!"

So just as dawn broke above the mountains in the east, the maiden left the old woman's cottage quite differently than how she had entered it. Her face was now disfigured and ugly, warts strewn across her visage like a constellation in the sky.

"Finally!" she thought, "now I can find my one true love, who'll desire me for my intellect above all else, and who only then can be rewarded with my beauty!"

Unfortunately, the maiden overestimated her intellect. She had very little personality to speak of, and had significant troubles holding a conversation with anyone above the age of 6 or 7. Though she sought diligently for her one true love, she found not a one. And though she tried to return home, her family didn't recognize her, and thus rejected her. Finally, she resigned herself to make what little money she could by prostituting herself throughout the closest villages. She died just a few short years later of herpes-related complications. And as it turned out, her ugly face was quite permanent, even in death.

And the moral of this story, of course, is: Never turn down a perfectly good present.