Once upon a time, an obnoxious boy sought to prove his love to the unpleasant princess he was fated to marry by agreeing to fetch her three biscuits belonging to the Terrible Monster living in the treacherous mountain just outside their kingdom. Read about it in the first part of Fortune and Fanny.
Fortune followed the crunching tearing gnawing sounds until finally, the Terrible Monster appeared in his view. But when he saw the beast, Fortune stopped, surprised.
Because the monster looked, well, pleasant. Sort of like a large monkey with a nice round face and cute fuzzy ears. Certainly nicer than Stupid Fanny and her Stupid Face.
But then the monster roared and howled and banged its fists against the ground.
And then it spoke.
“Hi,” it said. “Would you like a biscuit?”
And just like that, Fortune collected three biscuits. He stayed the afternoon, drinking tea with the Terrible Monster and talking about the kingdom. As they spoke, the Monster mentioned the meercat on the boat, saying in passing that if he were to hand anyone the oar, that anyone would be stuck rowing the boat, and the meercat would be free to go.
Fortune thanked the Monster for his hospitality, and then went on his way. He stayed quiet on the boat, but once he was safe on the shore, he told the meercat the secret he had learned.
And then he went home, and found Fanny.
Now, at this point, Fortune was furious with Fanny. Maybe he’d gotten lucky with the Terrible Monster, but still, he had never been so inconvenienced in his life. And so, since Fortune was a liar as well as an arrogant jerk, he told Fanny that there was a great treasure at the foot of the mountain, and a meercat in a boat could help her find it. And so, since Fanny was greedy as well as unpleasant, she set out the very next day to find it.
By the following night, as expected, Fortune found Fanny steering the boat back and forth across the lake, looking very, very angry. She cursed at him until her voice got hoarse, and then Fortune left her there and went home.
For several days, Fortune was very happy, knowing that Fanny who had inconvenienced him so was ceaselessly rowing back and forth across the lake. He didn’t even miss her.
Well, not all the time, anyway.
But one morning, when he woke up facing an angry dwarf from inside a glass coffin, he began to suspect she might be back.
Later, he learned that she had figured out the trick, and handed the oar to a hapless delivery elf. Then she returned to wage the biggest prank war the kingdom had ever seen.
Now, sometime during that war, Fortune realized he didn’t want to live without Fanny, even if she was forever hiding spindles among his belongings or putting his picture on polar bear love match websites. And it occurred to Fanny that maybe she wouldn’t mind being married to Fortune after all.
And the rest of the kingdom rejoiced, because they couldn’t imagine anyone as horrible as Fortune or Fanny finding love anywhere else.
The End.
Source: The Devil and the Three Golden Hairs, Brothers Grimm
