Puppy Love

A puppy, in its natural habitat

This week's story comes to us from South Africa. It caught my eye because, really, who doesn't want to read a story called Puppy Love?

We have all the makings of a standard fairy tale to begin with: the king who only wants a daughter and finally gets one, the daughter who doesn't turn nasty and selfish even though she gets everything she wants, and some jealous girls. Typically in European fairy tales the jealous girls are instead the girl's step-mother, but so far it looks pretty similar. Then the girl rescues a puppy from drowning. He doesn't talk, like he would in some fairy tales, but he follows her everywhere and they're best friends.

I was surprised that this beautiful princess didn't catch some young man's eye. She was saved from certain death by a dog instead of a prince or a man, which takes out the whole idea of her marrying her rescuer and makes it instead about debts being repaid. Her father and the men of the village come along afterward to essentially walk her home, and so the chief could see with his own eyes what had happened to his favorite daughter. To be honest, I'm surprised the girls tried to kill the princess, no matter how much they hated her because it could backfire on them like this.

I was a little worried about the king's wording of his punishment. If all the girls had to do was bring the monster to the chief, then it could destroy the village and they would still have kept their word. However, this is probably something that was changed in translation, so I shouldn't worry about it too much. The girls did as they were told, though. They brought the monster into the village and even managed to cage it, so that the warriors of the village could kill it.

I know this story is about the princess and how much she and her dog loved each other. I am on board with that, truly, but I think these nameless girls are the real heroes. I mean, after they tried to kill their princess. They were the only ones who were able to get rid of the monster in the lake. They did not kill it themselves, but they put themselves in danger to get it out of the lake and into the kraal.

The moral of this story is either to save puppies as often as you can, or to be able to run really fast if you're trying to get rid of a monster.