I begged him not to go, but he had to leave me. But it was too late! He had trusted me to keep his secret. But I had betrayed him. I shed light on him before he was ready to be seen. And all because of my mother’s suspicions!

“Where will I find you?” I cried. He said that the place lies east of the sun and west of the moon. I would never find it.

As I wake in the morning, I hope that it was all a bad dream. But I am kneeling on a patch of moss in a thick, gloomy wood, and the prince and the castle are gone forever.

Woman Who Loses Everything in East of the Sun and West of the Moon, Blue Fairy Book. Illustration by Kay Nielsen.