The White King’s Empire After the Battle,
by J. W. Cassandra
The fairy tale entitled The White King's Empire After the Battle belongs to my fairy tale book Bluebell Pixie's Tales. Within the book, there is a small coherent string of tales: I wrote three tales about the two kings and their empires, which I will share here one after the other. This tale is the second part of this smaller, coherent string of tales.
As you will see in a moment, Bluebell Pixie has returned to the cottage in the hilly countryside. The noise subsides, and the tale begins: the realm of the good White King is covered by the black cloud of evil, and even the queen and other members of the royal family fall victim to the cloud. Then the White King departs to the shore of the Seven Seas to ask for the help of his fairies. You will see how he understands the language of fairies, with what kind of fairy charms, incantations, say, and other fairy tricks he finally manages to overcome the black cloud, in the fairy tale. As well as the plans made by the king's sons and daughters-in-law to save the inhabitants of the Black Empire. However, this will be the third story in the little fairy tale string.
Bluebell Pixie soon returned to the cottage in the hilly countryside. The noise of the younger and older children could be heard from afar. As soon as they saw the little pixie, the noise grew earsplitting: they all flocked around her, and each of them wanted the little pixie's bag for himself. Bluebell Pixie waved them off, and as the noise faded, she conjured up a second tale from the enchanting bag, namely the tale about the White King's empire. Listen to it, you also, children!
After the memorable battle, the Black King transformed into a beneficent, or at least a ruler who no longer wanted to oppress anyone with the power of evil, but the black cloud that spread over his country was mixed with the white cloud of goodness during the battle. So this strange cloud, neither good nor bad, covered everything over the empire of both the Black and the White King, and infiltrated the hearts of the inhabitants of the empire. A kind of envy, malice, and evil has entered into good people, and the wicked have been inhabited with helpfulness, insight, patience, and love to a certain extent. Thus, the inhabitants of both empires were equally uneasy, envious, and annoying [1] to each other then they reconciled, forgave, and loved each other. This alternated in this manner, and no one was an exception, only the White King and his good fairies.
The White King once thought, when he could no longer afford to do justice in various lawsuits, to pass judgment on troublemakers, and to calm the unrest in his own family, because even his wife and daughters had fallen victim to the black cloud, he found himself and went to the good fairies who guarded his borders.
He walked, walked, not even looking where he was going, and he leaned on his walking stick, and when he was tired, he had a rest for a while. Only his eldest son knew where he was going, for he was the least infected by the black cloud, and the king entrusted him with the reign until his return. His eldest son did everything he could to ensure that by the time his father returned home, there would be no mistakes in the rule.
Well, the old White King went to the borders of his empire, because he knew that he would find his fairies somewhere there. After a long wandering, he reached the Seven Seas [2], beyond which the boundary of his empire did not extend. There sat one of his good fairies on the seashore.
"What wind does blow you here, White King?" The fairy asked.
"I have come to ask for a piece of advice, and if you would call your companions together, I would thank you very much," replied the old king.
"Why did you not call us to your council-hall, as you usually used to do?"
"Do not even say it, fairy, there are more eavesdropping ears on the wall of my council-hall than there are drops of water in this sea." The poor and troubled ruler waved wearily and sat down on a sand-hill.
"I will summon the fairy council here," said the fairy, "but I am not sure you are asking for its opinion in the right place here!"
"Maybe, together you can find out something to protect our secret!" The king sighed.
The fairy shouted in fairy language, which no earthly mortal being could hear unless the good fairies allowed it, and at the call all her companions flocked to her in the twinkling of an eye.
At the sight of the king sitting sadly, they quickly consulted in their fairy language, and then the eldest said:
"Your Majesty, please, stand in the circle that we are now creating! Thus, not a single word leaves this place, for if it did, it could only leave it in fairy language. And no earthly mortal being understands that."
"But I do not understand your language!"
"Everything will be fine, we will speak in your language, but for those who would eavesdrop, everything will sound in fairy language."
So the White King stood in the middle of the fairy circle and began to tell his troubles, when the eldest, the ranking fairy, warned him by gesture:
"Do not even say it, we see what wind has brought you to convoke the fairy council in such an unusual place. The only remedy for your trouble is the following: you are alone in your whole realm, surrounded by a white cloud of goodness. Therefore, increase this cloud and let its whiteness and power cover everything like the sunbeams shine everywhere! Then the evil that came here from the Black King's realm will be transformed into goodness, and your empire will be the same again. Your only ally is your eldest son, not to mention us. You must invoke the spreading of the white cloud in a fairy mode. Say the following rhyme three times, one after another, and the blackness will be transformed into a white cloud everywhere:
White cloud, increase, white cloud,
speed,
Spread out in and out, let
goodness be your form,
Conquer the black cloud; my empire, increase!
First say it out loud in the palace, then in the capital, and then outside it. We will help so that the black clouds cannot hide anywhere."
The fairy council finished, the good fairies flew the White King home, who recited the fairy rhyme aloud in the council-hall of the palace:
"White cloud, increase, white cloud,
speed,
Spread out in and out, let
goodness be your form,
Conquer the black cloud; my empire, increase!"
As he said this in the consil-hall, well, behold a miracle! The white cloud of goodness enveloped everything and everyone in the palace, so goodness reigned in it again.
Then the White King recited the fairy rhyme again in the most beautiful square of his capital:
"White cloud, increase, white cloud,
speed,
Spread out in and out, let
goodness be your form,
Conquer the black cloud; my empire, increase!"
At that moment, the white cloud covered the entire capital, and not a single tiny gap was left anywhere.
Finally, the king went outside the city, recited the fairy rhyme also there, and as a result of his words, the whole empire was again covered by a white cloud.
There was a great celebration throughout the empire! Everyone noticed the change in himself or herself, and was happy to be freed from the pieces of the black cloud of evil. Only one sadness cast a shadow over this great merriment: the White King, with his daughters-in-law, and his sons felt pity for the princesses who had married the sons of the Black King, because they, along with their people, were still struggling with the evil caused by such a black cloud.
They even decided to help them.
"How the White King's three sons and three daughters helped the realm of the Black King, that will be another tale of the magical enchanting bag, but now it is time for this tale to return to the bag!" Bluebell Pixie shouted for joy, and the tale of the White King withdrew into the enchanting bag...
If you would be good, you will soon have Bluebell Pixie as your guest and get to know the sequel!
Written: January 2006, by J. W. Cassandra
Translated: 23 / 07. 2025, by J. W. Cassandra
[1] In Hungarian, it is an idiomatic phrase, literally sounds so: "to crush pepper under the nose of somebody".
[2] In the Hungarian folklore and folk tales, we have the expression 'az Óperenciás-tengeren túl'. I rendered it here with 'beyond the Seven Seas, in a faraway land' or 'in the Seven Seas'. The Hungarian name of the sea has its origin from German: it was originally 'ober Enns', meaning 'over the Enns (the tributary of the river Danube in Austria).
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