Divia's Reviews > King Grisly-Beard

** spoiler alert ** I had a feeling that the fiddler was King Grisly-Beard and I was proven to be right. The title, the king's decision and the fact that the fiddler took her to King Grisly-Beard's land gave it away.

The princess is quite conceited and made fun of all of the guests and so you feel like she is supposed to deserve being humbled. Arrogance is not an attractive quality on anyone and society would especially detest it on a woman.

Even so, I felt bad for her that she ultimately ended up being forced to marry someone. That is a good reminder that women of that time were very much at their father's mercy. Her life with the fiddler also shows that once women are married they are at their husband's mercy. The princess, herself, did have an advantage in that she seemed to initially have the rare luxury of selecting her own husband and wasted it by mocking all of her suitors. However, I wonder if she mocked them, not just because of her own pride, but because she really did not want to marry any of them and was forced to marry someone of noble birth. She did not want to marry, expressed it in probably the worst way and was then forced to marry by her father.

It's always great to see characters who are arrogant get humbled. The princess was put through this by King Grisly-Beard. Even so, she still ended up marrying someone she did not want to marry. Once we find out the fiddler is King Grisly-Beard the narrative just says that everyone was happy. Honestly, after being put through what she went through, she would be pleased to be done with it and probably just settle for returning to royal life and being grateful for it. Still, by modern standards, she did not want to marry that man and might just eventually grow to dislike him, especially since he did put her through the things she disliked.

The story really overlooks the princess' choice, her father's choice and her husband's choice are given far more importance, as are marriage. She could have simply waited until she met someone she genuinely liked. The king could have found another way to deal with his daughter's arrogance. However, in such a time when a woman has a flaw that is particularly grating on men, she is punished harshly for it.

However, the story is very much of its time. It reminded me of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew which is controversial because of the treatment of women.