Once upon a time, a mouse decided it was finally time for his two sons to marry, and that they would find their brides in the traditional way: they would gnaw at the stem of a sunflower until it fell, and marry the girl the flower pointed to.
Now, the house the mice lived in had no mirrors or other reflective surfaces, and for good reason: the two sons had no idea they were mice. Long ago, their father had decided he would really rather be human, so they lived as humans, the boys would marry humans, and, hopefully, their children would be more human than mouse.
So the brothers went out and gnawed on their sunflowers until they fell. The older brother’s flower fell, luckily, just towards the house of the very girl he had been wooing. He immediately went over and spent a long time convincing her to be his bride.
The younger brother, however, found his flower pointing toward the woods, and he walked for a very long time before he found anyone at all. When he finally did, it was in a quiet little cabin under a lovely willow tree. She had a pleasant voice , and readily agreed to be his bride.
Also, she was a mouse.
He fretted about that a little on the way home, but reasoned that his dad was a mouse, and wouldn’t mind so much.
He was, of course, mistaken, and he was very worried indeed when he made his way back to the cabin. As a test, his father had instructed him to have his mouse weave a sample of the finest cloth ever for him.
He was even more worried when he explained the situation to his mouse, and she simply handed him a piece of cheese. It was a delicious piece of cheese, surely, but not at all what his father had requested.
So he did all he could of to do, and took his bride home, thinking to win his father over with her grace, beauty, and adorable whiskers.
But just as the pair were approaching the house, something surprising happened.
His father flew into such a rage that he physically attacked the little mouse, knocking her backwards into a pond. Without thinking, the son jumped into the water and swam after his bride. As he pulled her back to the shore, he got the greatest shock of his life: he was clearly a mouse, and not a man at all. Years of prejudice against mice and identity issues finally made sense to him.
He left his house, married the mouse, and they lived happily ever after.
The End
Source: The Mouse Bride, Finnish fairy tale
