A Gallery of Children/Chapter 10

by Alan Alexander Milne

THE MAGIC HILL

ONCE upon a time there was a King who had seven children. The first three were boys, and he was glad about this because a King likes to have three sons; but when the next three were sons also, he was not so glad, and he wished that one of them had been a daughter. So the Queen said, "The next shall be a daughter." And it was, and they decided to call her Daffodil.

When the Princess Daffodil was a month old, the King and Queen gave a great party in the Palace for the christening, and the Fairy Mumruffin was invited to be Godmother to the little Princess.

"She is a good fairy," said the King to the Queen, "and I hope she will give Daffodil something that will be useful to her. Beauty or Wisdom or Riches or—"

"Or Goodness," said the Queen.

"Or Goodness, as I was about to remark," said the King.

So you will understand how anxious they were when Fairy Mumruffin looked down at the sleeping Princess in her cradle and waved her wand.

"They have called you Daffodil," she said, and then she waved her wand again:

"Let Daffodil
The gardens fill.
Wherever you go
Flowers shall grow."

There was a moment's silence while the King tried to think this out.

"What was that?" he whispered to the Queen. "I didn't quite get that."

"Wherever she walks flowers are going to grow," said the Queen. "I think it's sweet."

"Oh," said the King. "Was that all? She didn't say anything about—"

"No."

"Oh, well."

He turned to thank the Fairy Mumruffin, but she had already flown away.

It was nearly a year later that the Princess first began to walk, and by this time everybody had forgotten about the Fairy's promise. So the King was rather surprised, when he came back from hunting one day, to find that his favourite courtyard, where he used to walk when he was thinking, was covered with flowers.

"What does this mean?" he said sternly to the chief gardener.

"I don't know, your Majesty," said the gardener, scratching his head. "It isn't my doing."

"Then who has done it? Who has been here to-day?"

"Nobody, your Majesty, except her Royal Highness, Princess Daffodil, as I've been told, though how she found her way there, such a baby and all, bless her sweet little—"

"That will do," said the King. "You may go."

For now he remembered. This was what the Fairy Mumruffin had promised.

That evening the King and the Queen talked the matter over very seriously before they went to bed.

"It is quite clear," said the King, "that we cannot let Daffodil run about everywhere. That would never do. She must take her walks on the beds. She must be carried across all the paths. It will be annoying in a way, but in a way it will be useful. We shall be able to do without most of the gardeners."

"Yes, dear," said the Queen.

So Daffodil as she grew up was only allowed to walk on the beds, and the other children were very jealous of her because they were only allowed to walk on the paths; and they thought what fun it would be if only they were allowed to run about on the beds just once. But Daffodil thought what fun it would be if she could run about the paths like other boys and girls.

One day, when she was about five years old, a Court Doctor came to see her. And when he had looked at her tongue, he said to the Queen:

"Her Royal Highness needs more exercise. She must run about more. She must climb hills and roll down them. She must hop and skip and jump. In short, your Majesty, although she is a Princess she must do what other little girls do."

"Unfortunately," said the Queen, "she is not like other little girls." And she sighed and looked out of the window. And out of the window, at the far end of the garden, she saw a little green hill where no flowers grew. So she turned back to the Court Doctor and said, "You are right; she must be as other little girls."

So she went to the King, and the King gave the Princess Daffodil the little green hill for her very own. And every day the Princess Daffodil played there, and flowers grew; and every evening the girls and boys of the countryside came and picked the flowers.

So they called it the Magic Hill. And from that day onward flowers have always grown on the Magic Hill, and boys and girls have laughed and played and picked them.