First, the princess found me in a dream. She picked me up and examined me. I am made of gold in a pattern that is exquisitely unique to the crown that the princess is meant to wear. She felt my weight, my leaves so finely wrought.

When she woke, she wanted to wear me and no other crown. And, since she was a princess who could have anything she wanted, she demanded that her father find me for her. When he dismissed her request as nothing but a dream, she grew sullen, silent, and sorrowful.

At last the king sent word to goldsmiths in every land to see if they could make her some facsimile of the wreath in her dream. The goldsmiths worked night and day, but the princess wasn’t interested in any of them. She tossed them away if she looked at them at all.

Then one day she found me. She had gone deep into the wild wood and there I was, under the sun, glittering between the paws of a great white bear who was playing with me.

She approached the creature and bravely offered to buy me from him.

No! said the bear. He would not sell me for money, but she could have me, if he could have her.

“Yes!” she said. Life would not be worth living without me. The bear could take her anywhere, and she would go if only she had me. And so it was settled between them that he should fetch her in three days’ time, on a Thursday.

She placed me on her crown, where I was meant to be. Where I could see, all the way to the end of the story.

Wreath of the White Bear Princess in King Valemon, The White Bear, Tales from the Fjeld, G.W. Dasent. Illustration by Sergei Demidov.