A Lovely Idea Goes Away

          A few nights ago I read the story "East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon' to Sleeping Beauty. This has always  been my favorite fairytale, and when I found it in a collection of stories I had gotten from the library, I was overjoyed. I read it to her as soon as I could. This is how the story goes.

      One stormy night a white bear knocked on the door of a poor man's house. The bear promised the poor man riches if he would give him his youngest and most lovely daughter. Of course the man said no, but the bear said he would be back next thursday. The girl heard and went with the bear. He brought her to a large castle inside a hill where she had only to ring a bell and she would get whatever she wanted. Even though she had all these luxuries, the girl was troubled because every night a stranger would come into the room after the lights were out. It was always gone before dawn. The bear told her to trust and not be curious, but one night she took a candle and looked at the stranger. He was a prince. Wax from her candle fell on him, and he awoke. The prince was under a spell so that he was a white bear during the day. Since she looked, the spell was not broken, and he had to go marry one of the witches in the castle east o' the sun and west o' the moon. After the prince and the castle had disappeared, she asked the every wind if he could take her to the castle. Only the north wind had blown there before. When she got to the castle, (by means of the north wind) the girl discovered that the prince was to marry she who could wash three spots of wax from his shirt. No matter how hard the hags tried, the shirt only got dirtier when they washed it. The girl tried washing it last, and it became pure white. The sun came out and turned the rest of the lot to stone, the girl and the prince were married, and they lived happliy ever after. 

       Well, I decided that it would be a good idea to write a book of this story in my own retelling. That was before yesterday. Yesterday our friends came over and started telling us about a book in which there was a prince under a spell so thet he was a polar bear. Then they went on to tell me that the bear brought the girl to a castle under a mountain. Oh no!

    "Did she drop three drops of wax on someone who was sleeping in her room?" I asked. She did.
   
     "Then did he disappear, and she had to find him at a castle east o' the sun and west o' the moon?"

       "No," one girl said, but then her sister said, "Wait! I think it did say something about that castle in there."

         So, as you can see, somebody already wrote a book based on my most beloved tale! Of course, I am still able to write my own version, but now I don't really want to. It just isn't special anymore.