The Ivory City and Its Fairy Princess

One day a young prince was practising archery with his best friend, the son of his father’s chief minister, the vizier. The prince aimed at a bird sitting on the windowsill of an upstairs room in a house nearby. He had no idea that anyone was inside, or he would never have shot that way. But the arrow flew into the room and struck a merchant’s wife who was walking about there. Not knowing what had happened, the two young men strolled away, the vizier’s son teasing the prince for missing the bird.

A little later the merchant went to ask his wife something and found her lying in the middle of the floor as if she were dead, with an arrow stuck in the ground half a yard from her head. Thinking she had been killed, he rushed to the window and screamed, “Thieves! Thieves! They have killed my wife!” The neighbours came crowding in, and the servants ran upstairs to see what was wrong. In fact the woman had only fainted. The arrow had just grazed her, leaving a tiny wound.

When she came round, she told them that two young men with bows and arrows had walked past, and that one of them had aimed at her on purpose as she stood at the window.

The merchant went to the king and told him the whole story. The king was furious at such a bold and wicked act, and he swore that the culprit would be punished terribly if he could be found. He told the merchant to go home and ask his wife whether she would know the young men if she saw them again.

“Oh yes,” said the woman. “I would know them among all the people in the city.”

“Then tomorrow,” said the king, when the merchant brought back her answer, “I will make every man in the city walk past your house, and your wife shall stand at the window and watch for the man who did this.”

A royal order went out, and the next day every man and boy in the city over the age of ten marched past the merchant’s house. The king’s son and the vizier’s son had been excused, but as it happened they joined the crowd anyway, just to watch the fun. As soon as they passed the window, the merchant’s wife recognised them, and the king was told at once.

“My own son, and the son of my chief vizier!” cried the king, who had been watching from the start. “What an example for the people! Put them both to death!”

“Not so, Your Majesty, I beg you,” said the vizier. “Let us look into the facts first.” He turned to the young men. “How did this happen? Why did you do such a cruel thing?”

“I shot an arrow at a bird sitting on the sill of an open window in that house, and I missed,” said the prince. “I suppose the arrow hit the merchant’s wife. If I had known anyone was near, I would never have shot that way.”

“We will talk about this later,” said the king. “Send the people home. They are not needed any more.”

That evening the king and the vizier talked long and seriously about their sons. The king wanted both of them put to death, but the vizier suggested that the prince should be banished from the country instead, and at last the king agreed.

So the next morning a small band of soldiers marched the prince out of the city. When they reached the last customs post, the vizier’s son caught up with them. He had come in a great hurry, bringing four bags of gold coins on four horses.

“I have come because I cannot let you go alone,” he said, throwing his arms around the prince’s neck. “We have lived together, we will be exiled together, and we will die together. If you love me, don’t send me back.”

“Think what you are doing,” said the prince. “All sorts of hardships may be waiting for me. Why should you leave your home and your country to be with me?”

“Because I love you,” said his friend, “and I shall never be happy without you.”

So the two friends walked on hand in hand as fast as they could, with the soldiers and the horses behind them. When they reached the edge of the king’s lands, the prince gave the soldiers some gold and told them to go home. The soldiers took the money and left, but they did not go far. They hid behind rocks and stones and waited until they were quite sure that the prince did not mean to come back.

The two exiles walked on and on until they came to a village, where they decided to spend the night under a big tree. The prince made a fire and laid out the little bedding they had, while the vizier’s son went to the shopkeeper, the baker and the butcher to buy their supper. Something held him up, and after waiting half an hour the prince grew restless and got up to walk about.

Not far away he saw a pretty, clear little stream. He heard that its source was close by, so he set off to find it. It turned out to be a beautiful lake covered with magnificent lotus flowers and other water plants. The prince sat down on the bank, and because he was thirsty, he scooped up some water in his hand. Luckily, he glanced into his palm before he drank, and to his amazement he saw in the water the clear, perfect reflection of a beautiful fairy. He looked around, hoping to see the fairy herself, but there was nobody there. So he drank the water and reached down for more, and again he saw her reflection in his palm. This time, when he looked around, he saw a fairy sitting on the far bank of the lake. The moment he saw her, he fell so deeply in love that he fainted.

When the vizier’s son came back, he found the fire lit, the horses safely tied and the bags of gold piled together, but no prince. He waited a little, then shouted, but nobody answered. So he went to the stream, where he found his friend’s footprints. He went back for the money and the horses, followed the footprints to the lake and found the prince lying there as if he were dead.

“Oh no! Oh no!” he cried. He lifted the prince up and splashed water over his head and face. “My brother, what is this? Don’t die and leave me like this! Speak to me! I can’t bear it!”

In a few minutes the water brought the prince round. He opened his eyes and stared wildly about him.

“Thank God!” said the vizier’s son. “But what is the matter, brother?”

“Go away,” said the prince. “I don’t want to talk to you or see you. Go away.”

“Come, come, let’s leave this place. Look, I have brought food, and the horses, and everything. Let us eat and be off.”

“Go by yourself,” said the prince.

“Never,” said the vizier’s son. “What has suddenly turned you against me? A little while ago we were brothers, and now you can’t bear the sight of me.”

“I have seen a fairy,” said the prince. “I saw her face for only a moment, for when she saw me looking at her, she covered it with lotus petals. Oh, how beautiful she was! And while I gazed at her, she took an ivory box from inside her dress and held it up to me. Then I fainted. Oh, if you can win that fairy for my wife, I will go anywhere with you.”

“Brother,” said the vizier’s son, “you have truly seen a fairy, the fairest of all fairies. She can be none other than Gulizar of the Ivory City. I know it from the signs she gave you. Covering her face with lotus petals told me her name, and showing you the ivory box told me where she lives. Be patient, and don’t worry. I promise I will arrange your marriage to her.”

These hopeful words cheered the prince greatly. He got up, ate, and went off happily with his friend.

On the way they met two men who belonged to a family of robbers. There were eleven of them in all. An elder sister stayed at home and cooked, and the ten brothers went out in pairs along the four roads that ran through that part of the country. They robbed any travellers who were too weak to fight back, and those who were too strong for two of them to handle they invited home to rest, so that the whole family could set upon them and steal their goods. The robbers lived in a kind of tower with several strong rooms, and beneath it was a deep pit where they got rid of the poor travellers who fell into their hands.

The two men came up to the travellers, greeted them politely and begged them to stay the night at their house. “It is late,” they said, “and there isn’t another village for miles.”

“Shall we accept this good man’s invitation, brother?” asked the prince.

The vizier’s son frowned a little to show he did not like the idea, but the prince was tired, and thinking it was only one of his friend’s fancies, he told the men, “Very well. It is very kind of you to ask us.” So all four of them went to the robbers’ tower.

Soon the two travellers found themselves sitting in a room with the door locked from the outside, groaning about their bad luck.

“Groaning won’t help,” said the vizier’s son. “I’ll climb up to the window and see if there is any way out. Yes! Yes!” he whispered when he reached it. “Down below there is a ditch with a high wall around it. I’ll jump down and look around. You wait here until I come back.”

Soon he was back. He told the prince that he had met a woman down there, who he supposed was the robbers’ housekeeper, and that she had agreed to let them go free if the prince promised to marry her.

So the woman led them out of the enclosure through a secret door.

“But what about our horses and our things?” asked the vizier’s son.

“You can’t bring them,” said the woman. “Going out any other way would be walking into your grave.”

“Never mind, then. They shall come out through this door too. I know a charm that can make them thin or fat.” So the vizier’s son brought the horses without anyone knowing, said the charm and passed them through the narrow doorway as flat as pieces of cloth. When they were all outside, he made them their proper size. He jumped onto his horse at once, took hold of the halter of another and signalled to the prince to do the same, and then he rode off. The prince saw his chance, and in a moment he was riding after him, with the woman sitting behind him.

But the robbers heard the galloping horses. They ran out and shot arrows after them, and one of the arrows struck the woman, so the travellers had to leave her behind.

They rode on and on until they came to a village, where they spent the night. The next morning they set off once more, asking everyone they met the way to the Ivory City, until at last they reached that famous place. There they found lodgings in a little hut belonging to an old woman, who they felt sure would do them no harm. At first she did not want them in her house, but she soon changed her mind when the prince dropped a gold coin into the bottom of the cup she had given him water in, and the vizier’s son gave her another. She agreed to let them stay for a few days.

When her work was done, the old woman came and sat with her lodgers. The vizier’s son pretended he knew nothing at all about the place or its people.

“Does this city have a name?” he asked.

“Of course it has, you silly fellow! Every little village has a name, never mind a city, and a city like this one!”

“What is it called?”

“The Ivory City. Don’t you know that? I thought the whole world knew it.”

At the words “Ivory City”, the prince let out a deep sigh. The vizier’s son gave him a look that said, “Hush, or you’ll give the secret away.”

“Is there a king of this country?” he went on.

“Of course there is, and a queen, and a princess.”

“What are their names?”

“The princess is called Gulizar, and the queen is called——”

The vizier’s son interrupted her by turning to look at the prince, who could scarcely contain his excitement. “Yes,” he told him afterwards, “we are in the right country. We shall see the beautiful princess.”

One morning the two travellers noticed the old woman getting ready with great care, arranging her hair and her best clothes just so.

“Who is coming?” asked the vizier’s son.

“Nobody,” said the old woman.

“Then where are you going?”

“To see my daughter, who is a servant of Princess Gulizar. I see her and the princess every day. I would have gone yesterday, if you two hadn’t been here taking up all my time.”

“Ah! Then take care not to say anything about us where the princess can hear.” The vizier’s son said this hoping that, because she had been told not to, she would be sure to mention them, and so the princess would hear that they had come.

When the old woman arrived, her daughter pretended to be very cross. “Why haven’t you come for two days?” she asked.

“Because, my dear,” said the old woman, “two young travellers, a prince and the son of some great vizier, are staying in my hut, and they keep me so busy. It is nothing but cooking and cleaning, cleaning and cooking, all day long. I don’t understand those men,” she added. “One of them seems very stupid. He asked me the name of this country and the name of the king. Where can they have come from, not to know such things? But they are very grand and very rich. Each of them gives me a gold coin every morning and every evening.”

Then the old woman went and told the princess almost exactly the same thing. When the princess heard it, she gave the old woman a hard beating and threatened her with worse if she ever mentioned the strangers to her again.

That evening, back at her hut, the old woman told the vizier’s son how sorry she was that she had broken her promise, and how the princess had hit her for talking about them.

“Oh dear, oh dear!” said the prince, who had been listening to every word. “If she is so angry at hearing about a man, how angry will she be at seeing one?”

“Angry?” said the vizier’s son, looking surprised. “She would be very glad to see one particular man. I am sure of it. The way she treated the old woman is her message asking you to come and see her during the coming dark fortnight, when there is no moon.”

“Heaven be praised!” cried the prince.

The next time the old woman went to the palace, Gulizar told one of her servants to rush into the room while she was talking with the old woman. If the old woman asked what was wrong, the servant was to say that the king’s elephants had gone mad and were charging through the city and the market, smashing everything in their way.

The servant did as she was told, and the old woman, afraid that the elephants would knock down her hut and kill the prince and his friend, begged the princess to let her go home. Now Gulizar had a magic swing that could carry anyone who sat in it to any place they wished. “Fetch the swing,” she told a servant. When it was brought, she told the old woman to sit in it and wish herself at home.

The old woman did so, and in an instant she was carried swiftly and safely through the air to her hut, where she found her two lodgers safe and sound.

“Oh!” she cried. “I thought you would both be killed by now! The royal elephants have broken loose and are running wild. When I heard, I was so worried about you that the princess gave me this magic swing to come home in. But come, let’s get outside before the elephants arrive and knock the place down!”

“Don’t believe it,” said the vizier’s son. “It is only a hoax. They have been playing tricks on you.” And he whispered to the prince, “You will soon have your heart’s desire. These are all signs.”

Two days into the dark fortnight, the prince and the vizier’s son sat in the swing and wished themselves inside the palace grounds. In a moment they were there, and there, too, by one of the palace gates, stood Gulizar, longing to see the prince just as much as he longed to see her.

Oh, what a happy meeting that was!

“At last I have seen my beloved, my husband,” said Gulizar.

“A thousand thanks to Heaven for bringing me to you,” said the prince.

The prince and Gulizar promised to marry each other, and then they parted, he for the hut and she for the palace, both happier than they had ever been.

From then on the prince visited Gulizar every day and went back to the hut every night. One morning Gulizar begged him to stay with her for good. She was always afraid that something terrible would happen to him, that robbers might kill him or that he might fall ill, and that she would lose him. She could not live without seeing him.

The prince told her there was nothing to fear, and said he felt he must go back to his friend at night, because his friend had left his home and his country and risked his life for him. Besides, he said, without his friend’s help he would never have found her.

For the time being, Gulizar agreed. But secretly she made up her mind to get rid of the vizier’s son as soon as she could. A few days later she ordered one of her maids to cook a dish of pilau rice, with a certain poison mixed in while it cooked. As soon as it was ready, the lid was to be put on the pan so that the poisonous steam could not escape. Then she sent it straight to the vizier’s son with this message: “Princess Gulizar sends you this gift in memory of her late uncle.”

The vizier’s son thought the prince must have spoken kindly of him to the princess, and that this was why she had remembered him. So he sent back his greetings and his thanks.

At dinnertime he carried the pan of pilau down to the stream to eat it there. He took off the lid, tossed it onto the grass and washed his hands. In the minute or so that this took, the green grass under the lid turned quite yellow. He was amazed. Suspecting poison, he threw a little of the rice to some crows that were hopping about, and the moment they ate it, they fell down dead.

“Heaven be praised for saving me from death this time!” cried the vizier’s son.

When the prince came home that evening, his friend was silent and gloomy. The prince noticed and asked what was wrong. “Is it because I spend so much time at the palace?”

The vizier’s son could see that the prince knew nothing about the poisoned rice, so he told him everything. “Look,” he said. “In this handkerchief is some of the pilau the princess sent me this morning in memory of her late uncle. It is soaked in poison. Thank Heaven I found out in time!”

“Oh, brother! Who could have done such a thing? Who could hate you so?”

“Princess Gulizar. Listen. Next time you go to see her, take some snow with you, I beg you, and just before you see her, put a little in both your eyes. It will make them water, and Gulizar will ask why you are crying. Tell her you are weeping for your friend, who died suddenly this morning. And take this wine and this shovel. When you have shown how terribly sad you are, ask the princess to drink a little of the wine. It is strong, and it will send her straight into a deep sleep. While she is asleep, heat the shovel and mark her back with it. Remember to bring the shovel back with you, and take her pearl necklace too. Then come home. Don’t be afraid to do these things, for your fortune and your happiness depend on them. I will see to it that the king her father and the whole court accept your marriage to the princess.”

The prince promised to do everything his friend had said, and he kept his promise.

The next night, when the prince came back from his visit to Gulizar, he and the vizier’s son took the horses and the bags of gold and went to a graveyard about a mile away. They agreed that the vizier’s son would pretend to be a fakir, a holy man, and the prince would pretend to be his follower and servant.

In the morning, when Gulizar woke up, she felt a smarting pain in her back and found that her pearl necklace was gone. She went straight to the king and told him about the missing necklace, but she said nothing about the pain in her back. The king was furious at the theft and had it announced all over the city and the country around.

“Good,” said the vizier’s son when he heard the announcement. “Don’t be afraid, brother. Take this necklace and try to sell it in the market.”

The prince took it to a goldsmith and asked him to buy it.

“How much do you want for it?” asked the goldsmith.

“Fifty thousand rupees,” said the prince.

“Very well. Wait here while I fetch the money.”

The prince waited and waited, until at last the goldsmith came back, and with him came the chief of police, who arrested the prince for stealing the princess’s necklace.

“How did you get this necklace?” the police chief asked.

“A fakir whose servant I am gave it to me to sell in the market,” said the prince. “Let me take you to him.”

He led the police chief and his men to the place where he had left the vizier’s son, and there they found the fakir with his eyes closed, deep in prayer. When he had finished, the police chief asked him how he came to have the princess’s necklace.

“Bring the king here,” said the fakir, “and I will tell His Majesty face to face.”

Some men went and told the king what the fakir had said. The king came, and when he saw how solemn and serious the holy man was in his prayers, he was afraid to anger him, in case Heaven should be displeased with him too. So he pressed his palms together humbly and asked, “How did you get my daughter’s necklace?”

“Last night,” said the fakir, “we were sitting here by this tomb, praying to God, when a ghoul in the shape of a princess came and began to dig up a grave that had been made a few days ago. I was so angry when I saw it that I struck her on the back with a shovel that was lying in the fire. As she ran away from me, her necklace came loose and fell. You may find this hard to believe, but it is easy to prove. Look at your daughter, and you will find the burn mark on her back. Go, and if it is as I say, send the princess to me, and I will deal with her.”

The king went back to the palace and ordered his daughter’s back to be examined.

“It is true,” said the maid. “The burn is there.”

“Then put the girl to death at once!” shouted the king.

“No, no, Your Majesty,” said his courtiers. “Let us send her to the fakir who found this out, so that he may do with her as he wishes.”

The king agreed, and the princess was taken to the graveyard.

“Shut her up in a cage and keep her beside the grave she disturbed,” said the fakir.

This was done, and soon the fakir, his follower and the princess were left alone in the graveyard. Not long after darkness fell, the two friends threw off their disguises, took their horses and their baggage, and came to the cage. They set the princess free, rubbed soothing ointment on the marks on her back, and sat her on one of the horses behind the prince. Away they rode, fast and far, and by morning they could rest and talk over their plans in safety.

The vizier’s son showed the princess some of the poisoned rice she had sent him and asked whether she was sorry for her ingratitude. The princess wept and admitted that he was her greatest helper and friend.

They sent a letter to the chief vizier, telling him everything that had happened to the prince and the vizier’s son since they had left their country. When the vizier read it, he went and told the king. The king sent a reply ordering the two exiles not to come home yet, but to write to Gulizar’s father and tell him everything. So they did, and the prince wrote the letter as the vizier’s son told him what to say.

When Gulizar’s father read the letter, he was furious with his ministers and officials for not discovering that such important visitors had been in his country, for he was very eager to win the friendship of the prince and the vizier’s son. He ordered some of his ministers to be put to death on a certain day.

“Come and stay at the palace,” he wrote to the vizier’s son, “and if the prince wishes, I will arrange his marriage to Gulizar as soon as possible.”

The prince and the vizier’s son gladly accepted, and the king gave them a truly royal welcome. The wedding soon took place, and a few weeks later the king gave them gifts of horses and elephants, jewels and fine cloth, and told them to set off for their own land, for he was sure their king would welcome them now.

On the night before they left, the ministers whom the king meant to put to death as soon as his guests had gone came to the vizier’s son and begged him to plead for them, promising that each of them would give him a daughter in marriage. He agreed, and he succeeded in winning them a pardon.

Then the prince, with his beautiful bride Gulizar, and the vizier’s son set off for home, with a troop of soldiers and many camels and horses loaded with treasure. Halfway there, they passed the robbers’ tower. With the help of the soldiers they tore it to the ground, defeated the robbers inside and took the treasure the robbers had been piling up there for years.

At last they reached their own country. When the king saw his son’s beautiful wife and his splendid company, he forgave him straight away and told him to come into the city and live there.

From then on the sun shone on the prince’s path. Everyone loved him, and in time he became king and ruled the country in peace and happiness for many, many years.

Where this tale comes from

This tale comes from Joseph Jacobs’s Indian Fairy Tales, published in London by David Nutt in 1892. Jacobs took it, with some small cuts, from J. Hinton Knowles’s Folk-Tales of Kashmir, and he notes that Gulizar is a Persian name meaning “rosy-cheeked”. He also mentions that the same story appears in Stokes’s Indian Fairy Tales as “Panwpatti Rani”.

Some darker details are told more gently here. The ghoul in the fakir’s made-up story is said to dig up a grave rather than to feed on what is in it, the robbers are said to be “defeated” rather than all killed, and the robbers’ housekeeper is not described as ugly, as she is in the original.

Read the original: Joseph Jacobs, Indian Fairy Tales (Project Gutenberg #7128, The Ivory City and Its Fairy Princess)

Reading guidance: for mature readers. This long tale includes attempted poisoning, animal deaths, drugging and burning a woman, confinement, and repeated execution orders.

A closer reading

The opening establishes a problem the ending never fully solves: rulers condemn people before investigating. The prince’s father orders an execution after the arrow accident; Gulizar’s father later does the same after seeing a burn, and then threatens his own officials for failing to recognize distinguished guests. The vizier’s son can redirect this power, but his success does not make those judgments fair.

Signs help the friends find Gulizar, yet signs can also be manufactured. The lotus and ivory box lead toward her identity; the burn and necklace are deliberately arranged to support a false accusation. Readers know how that apparent proof was created. Gulizar’s attempted poisoning is a serious betrayal, but drugging, burning and falsely condemning her is also violence, not simply a clever cure for jealousy. Her eventual marriage and apology leave those harms unresolved.

The helper’s loyalty is real and costly, but it benefits a narrow circle. The woman who frees them from the robbers is left behind after being struck by an arrow; the crows die in the poison test; officials offer their daughters in return for rescue. These details invite a reading in which a splendid royal ending is weighed against the people and creatures used to obtain it.

Try this with the story

Compare the arrow, the poisoned rice and the burn mark. Make a table of what the witnesses can see, what actually happened, and what explanation is offered. Decide which conclusions the evidence supports and which require further testimony. Do not reenact the tests or injuries.

Questions to ask

• Why was the prince banished from his country?
• How did the vizier’s son work out who the fairy was and where she lived?
• Why do you think Gulizar tried to get rid of the vizier’s son?
• Who do you think is the real hero of this story, and why?

You may also like

• The Faithful Prince — another Indian fairy tale of a prince who searches for a fairy princess
• The Barbers Clever Wife — another Indian tale where cleverness wins the day
• The Son of Seven Mothers — another tale from Joseph Jacobs’s Indian Fairy Tales

Also known as: Panwpatti Rani