The Princess on the Glass Hill

The Princess on the Glass Hill (From The Worlds Best Fairy Tales)
(Also read East of the Sun and West of the Moon, The Tree Billy Goats Gruff, and The Master-Smith)
By Peter Charles Asbjornsen
Readers Digest Assoc., 1967
Pages: 5
Reading Level: 9-12
Genre: Fairy Tale

This story is about a poor boy, with two older brothers. Once a year, the boy's family crops get eaten up, and they want to figure out why. So the father sends out the boy's eldest brother, who goes and watches at night, but there is an earthquake and he gets scared and runs away. The next year the father sends the next oldest son, who also gets scared away by an earthquake. The third year, the youngest son goes, and the earthquake does not scare him away. He sees a horse with a bronze suit of armor eating the crops. He captures the horse, and the next year he finds a horse with silver eating the crops. He capture this one also, and the third year he captures a horse with gold armor. A little while later, the king decrees that he is going to put his daughter at the top of a glass hill, and whoever can ride his horse up and get her and the three golden apple she holds will marry her and have half of the kingdom. On the first day no one can ride up the glass hill, but the boy goes and gets the horse with the bronze armor, and rides half-way up the hill. The princess is so impressed that she throws one of the golden apples at him and it rolls into his shoe. The second day he rides the silver horse two-thirds up the hill and then turns around again, and the princess again throws a golden apple at him. The third day he rides the golden horse all the way to the top and gets the third apple. Later he takes all the apples to the king and tell him that he rode to the top. The poor boy gets to marry the princess and owns half the kingdom.

I think that all children would benefit from this book. It shows them that if they are brave and try hard, that they can succeed.

I can't see this book causing any real problem, except that maybe they will start throwing apples :)

My reaction: This story was okay, not my favorite, but not bad either.

My rating: ***