00:07To be continued...
00:33The reign of a certain great king was defined by an opulence that defied the natural order.
00:40Anchored by a monstrously miraculous donkey in the royal stables which, instead of common dung, showered its stall with golden
00:48coins every morning.
00:51This divine prosperity remained unshaken until the queen fell into a fatal decline.
00:56In her final moments, she extracted a vow from her husband born of a twisted vanity.
01:02He was never to wed again unless his new bride surpassed her own incomparable beauty and grace.
01:09The king's mourning eventually curdled into a frantic search for a successor, yet every princess and noble woman in the
01:16world fell short of the dead queen's perfection.
01:19It was in this vacuum of grief and obsession that the king's eyes turned toward his own daughter.
01:25Finding in her the exact image of his lost wife, he became possessed by a criminal passion, declaring his intent
01:31to take his child as his bride.
01:35Driven by a cold terror, the princess sought refuge with her godmother, the Lilac Fairy.
01:41On the fairy's instruction, the girl attempted to thwart the king by demanding impossible bridal gifts.
01:46She first required a gown, the colour of the sky, then one of the moon's silvery luminescence, and finally, a
01:54garment as blinding as the sun.
01:56Each time, the king's artisans, fuelled by their master's madness, produced the impossible, weaving the very elements into silk and
02:04gold.
02:06As a final, desperate gambit, the princess demanded the hide of the golden donkey itself, certain the king would never
02:13sacrifice the source of his kingdom's wealth.
02:15Without hesitation, the king ordered the beast slaughtered.
02:19The raw, bloody skin was delivered to the princess's chambers, a gruesome testament to his resolve.
02:27Under the shroud of night, the princess smeared her face with soot and chimney grease, draped the heavy, putrid skin
02:34over her shoulders, and fled into the wilderness.
02:39The prince of this new land, while wandering the farm, eventually succumbed to a morbid curiosity regarding the beast living
02:46in the shack.
02:48Peeking through a grimy keyhole, he witnessed the girl stripped of her disguise, radiant in her dress.
02:54This secret vision induced in the prince a feverish malady, he took to his bed, refusing all sustenance, unless a
03:01cake was prepared, specifically by the hands of the girl, in the donkey skin.
03:08While kneading the dough in her dark hut, the princess accidentally let a tiny emerald ring slip from her finger
03:14into the batter.
03:17The prince, consuming the cake with a desperate hunger, discovered the jewel and used it as the instrument of his
03:24salvation.
03:24He decreed that he would wed only the woman whose finger the ring fit.
03:30The nobility and the peasantry alike failed the trial until the foul-smelling scullery maid was summoned.
03:39As the golden ring slid perfectly onto her finger, the heavy, maggot-ridden hide fell from her shoulders, revealing the
03:46shimmering celestial gown beneath.
03:50The king, her father, arrived at the wedding, his unnatural lust having finally burned out into a hollow regret.
03:57He gave his blessing to the union, allowing the princess to finally cast the stench of the dead donkey into
04:04the past as she ascended a new throne.
04:17To be continued...
04:19To be continued...
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