Fairer-than-a-Fairy

Fairer-than-a-Fairy (French: Le Prince Arc-en-ciel, English: "The Rainbow Prince") is a literary fairy tale published anonymously in the 1718 fairy tale collection Nouveaux contes de fées. It is attributed to the Chevalier de Mailly. Andrew Lang included it in The Yellow Fairy Book. Sources The tale appeared in print in Recueil des Contes des Fées, published in Geneva, in 1718, as its fifth story. The tale was also translated as The Rainbow Prince in an anonymous 1845 publication. Synopsis After many childless years, a king had a daughter so beautiful that he named her "Fairer-than-a-Fairy". This enraged the fairies, who resolved to kidnap her. They entrusted this to the oldest fairy, Lagrée, who had only one eye and one tooth left and could preserve those only by soaking them in a magical liquid at night. She kidnapped the seven-year-old princess, whose cat and dog followed her, and brought her to a castle, where she had a pretty room but was charged to never let a fire go out and to take care of two glass bottles.