A few days earlier, the servants of Ling's evil stepmother had kidnapped her and left her in the forbidden land of China all alone. Ling was the King’s daughter and was only thirteen years old at the time.
Almost five years earlier, Ling’s birth mother passed away and her father, the King of China, suddenly remarried an “evil witch” (as the young girl described her). Ever since the two married, Ling’s stepmother, Wen, had always despised her husband's daughter.
The young, innocent girl could never figure out why her new stepmother despised her. Although she could never pinpoint the reason of her hatred, she was certain that she wasn’t making it up.
As a young girl, Ling remembered her stepmother constantly trying to hurt her. One time, her stepmother even tried to poison Ling, but accidentally poisoned her own son instead. It took a lot of effort for the princess to hold back her laughter in that specific scenario.
The worst part about the whole situation was that the King thought Ling was being a typical teenage girl and was making up these horrible stories to gain attention. She distinctly remembered him saying, “Oh, Ling… you have an imagination just like your mother did.”
As his little girl sat in the wilderness all alone, Ling wondered if her father would believe her “stories” now.
“Why would Ling run away?” asked the King. “She has everything that she could ever dream of right here!”
“It is okay, honey,” said Wen calmly. “I am sure she will come around sooner or later.”
Without another word, the King sent his military to search the entire country. The troops were given orders to enter every house and to question anyone who looked suspicious. The military met as a group and decided to split up their search for the lost princess. Out of the entire Chinese military, there was only one man brave enough to search past the Great Wall of China. This man went by the name of Lyn.
Everyone in the country knew Lyn as a man who had no fear. He was a mighty warrior who was a master at sword fighting and archery. The warrior always wore his military uniform and was never caught without two swords in his hands. Needless to say, Lyn was up for any battle that came his way.
After searching for several hours, Lyn grew tired and took a break on a nearby tree stump. The warrior closed his eyes and began to drift off into a deep sleep. Only moments later Lyn heard a noise and jumped to his feet. Determined to kill any creature that came his way, Lyn drew his arrow and was aiming to kill.
Due to the blackness of night, Lynn could not see clearly. As he crept closer to the noise, he saw what looked like a forest dwarf. Lowering his arrow and clearing his eyes, he realized that the figure was not a dwarf… but was a little girl!
“I am the King’s loyal warrior,” yelled Lyn. “Please present yourself.”
Without saying a word, Ling appeared from behind a large willow tree.
Realizing who she was, Lynn swooped her up and took her back to the King’s castle immediately.
Upon their arrival, the King ran from the castle and swooped his little girl into his arms.
“My little princess,” exclaimed the King. “You are safe!”
With these words, Ling knew her father finally believed her stories because she never saw her stepmother again and lived happily ever after.
Author’s Note: My story idea came from the the Japanese Fairy Tale Unit that was written by Yei Theodora Ozaki. I got the idea of the “lost princess” from the story named The Story of Princess Hase. In the original story, a young girl had an evil stepmother. The stepmother tried to kill her a numerous times. At the end of the story, she sent her into the wilderness and told her father that she had run away. I got the idea of a brave warrior from the story named My Lord Bag Of Rice. I loved the idea of having a brave warrior save a young child. At the end, I wanted the picture of the little girl running into her dad's arms to reflect the way God searches after us no matter what situation we are in. To end the story, I wanted my reader's imagination to run wild. In order to do this, I did not say exactly what happened to the evil stepmother. (I wanted my reader's to have their own ending in a way!) In conclusion, I had a blast writing this story. All of the mystical creatures came from a variety of ancient Japanese fairy tales found in this unit.
Bibliography: Japanese Fairy Tales written by Yei Theodora Ozaki in 1905.
Hi, matty. I have chosen this story for my extra because I thought your previous story for the portfolio was great. I really enjoyed your writing because your stories are like fairy tales. and Wow. You did such a great job! I really like how you combined two original stories that you have read from Japanese tales into one new story. You did a great job at forming a new story based on your observation. My favorite part is the ending. I am wondering what happened to her stepmother. I hope you got what she deserved! I think this story was similar to western princess story. It feels really familiar because the story about princess Ling is really similar to western Princess Cinderella. Evil stepmother who hated her step-daughter. But what you did there made all the difference because you added a character such as the warrior. I like how it ended with the happy ending as well for princess Ling.
ReplyDeleteHi, Matty. I am commenting on this story for a couple extra comments as I read all of the portfolios this week! I just read "The Starry-Eyed Lovers" and really enjoyed it! I then decided to read this one and was equally impressed. It also obviously took a lot of creativity on your end since you incorporated so many stories in such a seamless way!
ReplyDeleteI am working on a storybook this semester and wrote a Cinderella story for mine as well. I loved what you did with yours, though! I thought it was a really interesting idea to incorporate a whole other culture into the story. I liked how the story had all of the elements of the Cinderella story- a wicked stepmother, the daughter's rejection, a prince- but in a whole new light!
Great work and good luck with the rest of your portfolio!
I really enjoyed reading your story! I liked how you combined the elements of the two different plots to create this structure--and I really liked the images you painted about what lay in wait outside the Great Wall for Lyn. You also certainly succeeded in making me wonder what had happened to the evil queen at the end of the story--what might work even better, though, is mentioning the queen in passing but not saying anything about what the circumstances were for her. That would bring her back to the front of our minds after we've been completely distracted by the image of Ling being returned to her father. I was also kind of confused, at the beginning, about what exactly comprised the "Forbidden Land of China," so maybe you could elaborate a little about whether you mean a forest, or the lands outside the Great Wall, or what? Anyway, those were minor things--great story overall, and good luck for the rest of the semester!
ReplyDeleteI’m from the Indian Epic Class and decided to check out some stories for your class! The title and description of your story sounded so interesting! I absolutely loved that you had the setting of the story in China! It was a small detail but really helped make the story your own. I loved the character of Lyn! I hope you write some sort of follow up story where Ling grows up and somehow has a love interest in the form of Lyn! You could even adapt the story to be a little like Mulan. Two movies in one story! I like that after Ling was rescued, her father did not get upset but instead was overjoyed at her return. I think you captured his character extremely well! I could see he was a loving father that finally realized how bad the stepmother was. He put his daughter first, as he should. Awesome story!
ReplyDeleteWow Matty, this retelling of yours is so beautifully done. I like that you were able to take a traditional story like Cinderella and change some minor and major elements to make it a completely new story. I also thought it was neat that you combined the Princess Hass and Bag of Rice story to make your story really well rounded. Those evil stepmothers, when will the Kings finally know they are always up to no good.
ReplyDeleteGreat choice for the image to accompany your story; it was a beautiful picture and put a clear image into my head of Ling. I also appreciated that you added another image of Lyn fighting for Ling. Props to Lyn for being brave enough to go beyond the wall otherwise I'm sure princess Ling would never have been found. It was genius of you to end in the way you did, the hinting you made at the stepmother no longer being present was enough for my mind to wander off about would could have come of her. Great job!