The Princess and the Blue Rose
An old-fashioned retelling of a Chinese folktale
A long time ago, there was a little kingdom that was ruled by a old king. He had but one daughter, who was as lovely as the dawn.
The legend of her beauty carried far and wide, and many wealthy merchants and princes desired her hand. The princess refused to hear their proposals, however, always saying instead that she was too young to think of marriage.
Her only friend was the humble son of the gardener, whom she had known all her life. As children, they had played together in the shade of the palace gardens. As the princess grew into a young lady, she liked nothing better than to sit with him among the flowers, talking to him as he worked.
When the gardener’s son grew into a man, however, he left to fight in a war, and the princess missed him awfully and longed to see him return. But the war ended, and the gardener’s son did not come home.
As the months passed by and her dear friend still did not appear, the princess began to eat less and less, and the color left her cheeks. She refused visitors, and would not sing nor play her harp. Instead, she preferred to sit quietly on the balcony above the palace gardens, looking out at the distant mountains with wistful eyes.
As the princess wilted, the old king grew very worried about her.
He did not know that she was sick with worry for her childhood friend, but anyone could see that she was pining for someone. He thought that surely a handsome suitor would make her smile again.
“And I am old,” thought the king. “Look at her now, wasting away! What will become of her when I am no longer here? She must marry, or else there will be no one to care for her.”
The old king approached his daughter and said it was high time she ought to be accepting suitors — and accepting a proposal, too.
The princess refused, saying she did not want to marry, but the king would not take no for an answer. He needled her and he begged her and finally he grew exasperated.
“There must be something that will convince you to marry!”
“I will marry a man who can bring me a blue rose,” said the princess at last. “But only he that brings me a blue rose.”
For the palace gardens had roses of every color except for blue, and the princess remembered that the gardener’s son had told her, once upon a summer afternoon, that no one had ever been able to grow a blue rose, nor had one ever been found.
It is only a dream, thought the princess sadly, thinking more of her friend than of the rose.
But the old king, who knew even less about flowers than he did his own daughter’s heart, readily agreed. He sent emissaries to every nearby kingdom with the message that any man who brought his daughter a blue rose would have her hand in marriage.
The news caused a great deal of excitement throughout the land, but the princess thought that would be the end of it —for who could find a blue rose, after all?
The princess was not quite right about this, however.
Soon, the princess’s first suitor arrived at the palace gates.
He was a wealthy merchant of the arts, and being unable to find a real blue rose, he had asked his finest painter to paint the petals of a rose in the most beautiful shades of blue.
The merchant, however, was too hasty in his proposal, for when he handed the flower to the princess with a deep bow, some of the paint came off on her delicate fingers.
“This isn’t a blue rose at all,” said the princess. “I won’t marry someone who deceives me.”
The second suitor was a merchant rich from the silk trade, and when he could not find a blue rose either, he had his most talented tailor sew together a rose made from the purest blue silk.
But the silk merchant, to his misfortune, could not resist arriving to the palace in dressed head to toe in his finest silk clothes, and the princess was quick to notice that the petals were made with the same material.
“A rose is grown, not woven,” she said.
The third suitor was a mysterious prince from a kingdom of dark forests, too full of shadows for flowers of any kind to grow, and his court magicians had devised the illusion of a blue rose in a box.
Everyone in the court gasped when the prince opened the ornate box to reveal the dainty image of the flower, but when the princess reached out to pick it up, her hand passed right through it.
“Begone, and take your trickery with you,” she said.
The fourth suitor arrived, and he was an exceedingly rich prince from a kingdom with very few gardens but many glittering jewel mines. He had his royal artisans craft an exquisite rose carved entirely from sapphire, and presented it to the princess on a golden cushion.
The old king was dazzled, but the princess was not impressed.
“I asked for a rose, not a stone,” she said.
The wealthy prince was shocked.
“But this could buy half your kingdom!”
“Perhaps, but not my hand.”
The greatest danger, however, came from the fifth suitor.
He was from an ancient kingdom rich in knowledge, and he was not only a prince, but also an alchemist. He was the cleverest of all.
This prince had taken precious blue gemstones and ground them into a fine powder, which he used to make blue dye. He then watered a rosebush with the dye until the roses blossomed into the most vivid shade of blue.
When he presented the princess with the azure rose, she was alarmed because she could find no fault with it. The prince was as arrogant as he was clever, however, and this made him very foolish.
In his excitement, he could not resist telling the princess exactly how the rose was made, and how brilliant he was to have discovered how to do it.
“Then it isn’t a blue rose at all,” insisted the princess. “It’s a white rose — you have only dyed it.”
“Now really, daughter!” said the old king, fairly at his wits’ end. “It is a rose and it is blue! It is a blue rose! What more do you want?”
“Papa! Does saying something make a thing into something it isn’t?”
“It does if you want it badly enough!” the old king snapped, out of patience, and he left the room in a bad temper.
Now about this time, the princess’s friend, the son of the gardener, was returning home.
The war had been over for a long time, but the young man had been ill for many months since. Once he had recovered, it had taken some time to gather the strength and courage to go home, for he could not walk easily and his face had been scarred fighting in the war. He knew it would hurt his family to see him wounded… and he wondered if the princess would even recognize him at all.
As he passed a bend in the road heading towards the palace, he caught sight of some soft purple flowers growing on the grassy bank — morning glories.
Their little faces peered up at him, looking hopeful, as if to tell him to be brave and that it would be all right. He stopped and picked one.
“Perhaps, if I give this to her — she will think of the days in the garden — and my face won’t frighten her so.”
And so the gardener’s son continued on the way to the palace, his labored footsteps a little lighter with the pretty flower to keep him company.
He had been gone for so long, and had been so far away and so sick, that he didn’t know a thing about the princess’s request for a blue rose.
And so, when he arrived at the palace gates, the guards saw the flower in his hand and quickly ushered him to the great hall, to his great surprise.
The gardener’s son was confused and wondered if he was caught up in some kind of trouble, but he had little time to think about this, for in a moment he was face to face with none other but the princess.
She scarcely noticed the scars on his face; all she could see were the kind, bright eyes she knew so well. She was so startled she could not say anything.
The young man’s heart fell, thinking she did not know him anymore, but he smiled a little smile and held out the flower in his hand. At this point, the princess found her voice (although she really only could manage a happy little scream) and threw herself at her long-lost friend.
The king, who knew as little about the servants of the palace as he did the flowers in his garden, did not recognize the man as the son of the gardener, and only thought that he was another suitor — albeit one very shabbily dressed.
“Him?” cried the old king.
Soon the hall was filled with whispers, for everyone was saying that the little flower was only a common morning glory, as common as the man who gave it to the princess — and it wasn’t even blue at all, really.
But the princess, with a radiant smile, only said, “Look, Papa! He has brought me a blue rose.”
The old king was baffled. He wondered if he’d gone mad — or if she was.
“But daughter! Does saying something make a thing into something it isn’t?”
The princess’s smile grew a little brighter.
“It does if you want it badly enough,” she said.
The old king opened his mouth for a clever retort, but he found he didn’t have one and he sighed instead. He knew his daughter had won.
“Then, my dear child: it is a blue rose.”
The poor gardener’s son was quite confused by all the excitement, although he was gladdened by the princess’s smile and nothing else seemed to matter much in that moment. Once everything had been explained to him, however, he found that he didn’t mind marrying the princess in the slightest.
And forever after, the palace gardens in that kingdom were said to have the most beautiful flowers in the world — perhaps, even, a blue rose.
Hi, I hope you enjoyed this little story!
This is a retelling/re-imagining of The Legend of the Blue Rose, a Chinese folktale. I ran across it recently when looking up the symbolism of blue roses, and I thought it was such a lovely story and wanted to put my own spin on it.
Unfortunately, I don’t know when or where in China the folktale originated — I’ve seen a few different versions online, but the earliest record I can find of it on the internet (at least in English) is a retelling by Rose Owens from the year 2000, which you can read here, courtesy of Internet Archive.
If anyone knows anything about the origins of this folktale, please comment about it!
