Garamesh and the Farmer

By David V. Stewart

Failing to find suitors for their fickle daughter, the king and queen hold a great contest, with the victor gaining the right to marry the princess. To the chagrin of the king, a simple farmer mysteriously gains entry into the contest and sets about winning all of the events through unconventional means. The contest takes a dark turn, however, when the king tasks the suitors with the slaying of an ancient dragon newly awakened in Black Mountain. Is the cleverness and imagination of the farmer great enough to overcome a god-like being?

• Language: English
• Publisher: DVS Press
• Release date: Dec 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9781386654391

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Author’s Note

The following story is actually part of a larger narrative which is as of yet unpublished. I wrote it for one of the children in that setting, but liked it so much for its own qualities and for my own child I decided to create a new, stand-alone setting of the text. Fairy tales have always fascinated me as a type of mythology, and especially those tales that teach virtue. I have tried my best in Garamesh to showcase the values and virtues that I want my own children to consider. I hope you will find it enjoyable.

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For Rone

Garamesh and the Farmer

A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time there was a girl. A princess, as a matter of fact. She was very beautiful and very kind. She had long blonde hair and silver-blue eyes, and her parents loved her more than all the jewels on earth. When she was seventeen years old, nearing her eighteenth birthday, pressure from the castle court compelled her parents to talk to her of marriage. This was not welcome news for the princess. She was young and passionate about her freedom. She preferred hunting alone to reclining at court, and preferred riding clothes to delicate lace dresses. She was altogether unfit to be wed, but her parents assured her that they would not make her marry anyone she did not like, and so the princess relented.

On her eighteenth birthday a huge celebration was held in the castle hall, where the king and queen announced the eligibility of their only child. Whispers and talk went among the many ladies and lords of the court, on whose son would be favored to gain the crown. Everyone was happy and excited, except the young girl , who spent most of the evening in the corner eating sugary cake with her hunting dog.

Some days later, the first set of suitors were brought to the castle to woo the young princess. These men gained entry mostly because they were rich, and she dismissed all of them out of hand, without so much as speaking a word to them.  They were all too old, or too ugly, or both too old and too ugly.

Then the second set of suitors were brought in. They were chosen for the title they would yet inherit and the political power of their families.  She let them stay long enough in the castle to speak with each, but eventually she dismissed them all. They were all either too conceited, too unkind, or too arrogant to see that they were all three. They wanted her only for her wealth and family, and expected that she would act as a coy queen in their own fantasies of rule.

Her parents were at an impasse. They spent long nights wondering how they could find a gentleman to satisfy their discerning daughter and still serve the kingdom as ruler. After a fortnight, they came to the princess with an offer. They would open the castle up to eligible men outside of the nobility, and would present them with tasks to prove their worth to the princess.  At the end of the contests, she would have to marry one of them, provided they had passed the tests of the king and queen, and so satisfy the court with a sound marriage.  Feeling that her life was doomed to be one of boredom and imprisonment, the princess relented.

At last, the dreaded day came, and the court and magistrates and nobles of the city were assembled in the castle to witness the beginning of the contest. The king and queen stood to the side. The doors were opened, and in came three suitors. They were lined up before