Spanish Fairy Tale... The Wounded Lion

I read an old Spanish fairy tale. It was about a poor girl who herded cows. One day, she heard a moan, and found a lion with a thorn in its paw. She decided to tend to it and the lion was very thankful. But she couldn't find her cows. Her master beat her and made her herd donkeys instead. A year later, she found the same lion wounded again. As soon as she healed the lion, the donkeys vanished. Her master beat her again and forced her to herd pigs. Of course the lion appeared for a third time. She healed him again and the pigs vanished. But this time she decided to wait and see if she could find them. She climbed a tree and saw a man coming down a path and vanished behind a rock at sunset. She stayed until she saw him come out. At dawn, a lion came out. She went down and behind the rock a beautiful house stood there. She tidied it up and ate a meal before coming out to climb the same tree. The man came at the same time, and the next morning, the lion looked about before going on. After three days of this, she could not discover his secret, so she left her tree and asked him. He told her that he was cursed by a giant into that form by day and was the lion she had helped; furthermore, the giant had stolen the cows, donkeys, and pigs in revenge for her aid. She wanted to free him. He told her that the only way was to get a lock of hair from the king's daughter and make a cloak from it for the giant. So she did just that and was hired as a scullion for the princess. Once she earned the princess's trust she received a lock of her hair, but only if the girl promised to find the princess someone to marry. The girl went to the giant and gave him the cloak. He told her in order to turn the lion back into a man she had to kill the lion, cut him into pieces, burn them, and throw the ash into water. Then the prince would arise from it a man. She went away crying, afraid that the giant had lied and she would kill the prince. The prince comforted her and told her to do it, and it worked. He said he would marry her. The girl told him she had promised the princess that she had found her a husband. They went back to the princess, and her parents, the king and queen, knew him for their own son. So he married the girl who had saved him. And they lived happily ever after. The End!

I think the girl in this story deserved to marry the prince. When she tended to the lion she had no idea that it was really the prince in disguise. She is also very tough. Her master beat her several times, but everytime the lion showed up she put her own problems aside and cared for him. The moral of this tale is that good things come to good people!

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