My father wanted to marry me and I absolutely refused!

I consulted my fairy godmother and she advised me to ask him for impossible things. But he gave me everything I asked for.

The only way out of the awful predicament was to ask my father for a fur coat made from the skin of his donkey, the secret source of all his fortune.

To my horror, he killed his donkey!

‘Take heart,’ said my fairy godmother. “Wrap yourself in the donkey skin, and leave the palace. Go as far away as you can. I will look after you. Your dresses and your jewels shall follow you underground, and if you strike the earth whenever you need anything, you will have it at once. But go quickly: you have no time to lose.”

I clothed myself in the ass’s skin, and slipped from the palace without being seen by anyone.

The Donkey Princess in Donkey Skin, Grey Fairy Book. Illustration by H.J. Ford.